A Mindress, a Motorcycle & My Senior Prom: A Story About Inner Beauty

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A Minidress, a Motorcycle & My Senior Prom: A Story About Inner

Beauty

Current mood: peaceful

Category: Life

Last night an old friend told me of the impression I made at the

senior prom, as I stood with him and my fiancée in post-concert

conversation. Apparently the boys were quite awed, a fact of which I

was entirely clueless at the time, like I was about a lot of things.

It was interesting hearing almost 40 year-old news, as if had come to

me through a tunnel.

It was 1968. I had just broken up with my boyfriend. I loved to

dance, and it was the prom, after all, so I certainly was determined

to go. And go I did. My sister Kitsy hooked me up with a guy she knew

named Jeff, who was a great dancer and happy to escort me as a friend

and dance partner only. No romance. No hanky panky. A few years

older, in his early twenties. A genuinely nice guy.

He called me and asked if I would mind going on a motorcycle. Mind?

Are you kidding? I was a prep school girl one month shy of my

eighteenth birthday, yearning to break free of the shackles (as I

considered them) of " the Establishment, " before the conveyor belt I

seemed to be on landed me in the Ivy League college my father had

picked for me, where all our family had gone and/or worked or taught,

and the only one he would finance, the University of Pennsylvania. If

I had to go to Penn instead of art school, I reasoned, if one could

call it reason, then I was going to cram all the fun I could into

life in any way I could.

I chose a daring dress. A mossy green shimmery metallic mini with a

backless halter top exactly the color of my eyes. And let my elbow

length ash blonde hair hang down, to create the desired swishy effect

when dancing. Perfect makeup, all eyes and pale lips, like Jean

Shrimpton, the supermodel of the time. Tall, slim body, matching

Jeff's, looking dashingly handsome in his tux. Looking back on it, we

must have made a pretty picture. We danced, and then, every bit the

gentlemen he was advertised to be, he took me home. I think we shook

hands.

That was it. No prom parties, no late night. I must have gone to bed

reading, as I always did. Alan Watts, Haikus, h Fromm, Hermann

Hesse. I had already begun on my path as meditator and I already had

a sense of ministry. I had begin speaking in Quaker meetings for

worship when the Spirit moved me. And, I had already made myself a

promise that in this life I would become self-actualized. Fulfill my

true potential. And be truly happy. Whatever it took.

I bless that young girl for that pledge and for all she did to bring

me to this place. I feel compassion for how little she knew about her

real beauty, the kind that comes from within, and also how unable she

was to accept her outer beauty too, that other people saw. Because

her discomfort with herself and feelings of unworthiness, even as

slim as she was and as pretty as she was, she never felt beautiful.

She looked in the mirror and saw with fat eyes.

So many of my weight loss clients tell me the same thing. That they

were thin in high school and didn't know it. Didn't feel it. They

thought they were fat. And as we know, what you think and feel and

focus on…creates your reality. Beauty comes from within. It shines

forth as kindness, it radiates as love, and it glows as joy. It

lights up any face and gives any body the energy to move in grace. A

happy woman is a woman who creates even more happiness, even more

beauty, naturally. Her life is in alignment, as she is in alignment

with her true nature.

I discovered my first real glimmerings of joy after I had created a

body as heavy as I thought it was, and even heavier. Twice the size

of my high school weight. And then, I found my way back to myself.

And, it was fun. As fun as a ride on a motorcycle. As fun as hearing

nice things about your high school self said by a gallant and kind

classmate to your fiancée. As fun as redecorating the home you live

in, your body temple.

May you discover That Beauty That Shines From Within.

May you feel it, know it and grow it.

May you love the place your spirit dwells.

And may you light the candle within it daily.

Blessings,

Kanta

copyright Kanta Bosniak December 2007