I am in pain and I see the color blue.
Or rather I do not see it, but I feel it. A very bright blue, the color of my favorite handbag. I wonder if this is the color of pain, and if it is, if I feel a sense of affinity towards pain, as I do towards my handbag.
Of us three children, I was the ugly one. Not that anyone used the word ugly. But it was made clear that it was my little sister who was the pretty one. Even when I asked if I was pretty, there were a long pause before I was told that I was... "um... attractive". We all knew that attractive was not where it was at.
When I was 10 years old, the Sunday Times Magazine ran an article on sex appeal. I asked my mother what sex appeal was, and she told me that my little sister had it. She did not hesitate to add that it was something I did not have. My little sister was 4 years old at the time.
In addition to not being pretty and lacking in sex appeal, I was clumsy, awkward and "uncoordinated". Nobody in the family understood what this really meant, but we all knew that it kind of meant clumsy, awkward and ugly. It was strange because I loved dancing ballet, I wanted to be a ballet dancer. Later in life, I danced ballet on the stage while my sister watched from the audience and continued to call me "uncoordinated". My younger siblings hurled these epithets at me until I was in my 30s, until we stopped speaking. They had been taught from very small that this was how I was. Nobody could blame them.
Now, when I look at the old photos, I realize that it was I who was the pretty one, I who moved graciously. In a family of dark-haired, dark-eyed souls, I was the red-haired, blue-eyed mystery. In a family of short people, I was the tall one. My sister looked like my mother - small, with dark hair, dark eyes and large breasts. You will find those in your own likeness to be the ones you cherish. You will label others ugly because you do not understand.
Now I think, even in pain I feel beautiful colors because I perceive beauty all around me and because I perceive beauty within me. Because beauty is of prime importance for me and ugliness is only wayward, falsely directed beauty which has taken the wrong path. Because it did not understand.
