5 Lessons on Vanity: An Invitation to Awareness and Letting Go
I was once considered beautiful. Perhaps, by some, I still am. At fourteen years old, I took a modeling course with two of my girlfriends. The ultimate in turning the body into an object to be adored. After three weeks of learning how to walk, sashay, and twirl, we sat down to paint our faces. The palate consisted of endless brushes and shadows—pinks, browns, golds, and glimmering sparkles. Now, I think of it as war paint. We were being trained in the art of disguise, heightening our beauty, to use sexuality as an enticing weapon, and as a means of power. But at the time, it was playing dress up, like a six-year-old getting into mum’s make up and smearing it all over her face, making garish designs that can look cute on children. I didn’t understand the implications. As part of this evolution, thin eyebrows were a necessary part of the mask: pull out all those unsightly and unwanted hairs to create a narrow arch of both surprise and slight disdain, to disarm with a slight tilt of the head, gazing upward and flirtatious. One of the instructors, Mary-Anne, was moon-faced, large lipped, and fish-eyed, with long lashes. She came at me with relish, gleeful, saying, “I’ve been waiting for weeks to get at you.” As she carefully tugged out each hair my eye muscles contracted into an excruciating spasm. The tears poured out of my tortured left eye while I endured this in the pursuit of iconic beauty. Lesson One: Vanity Is Costly and Finite This was the first indication, although I didn’t get the message, that vanity has a price. This attachment to the body, the idealizing of our skin bag, ultimately comes at great cost. Women so often are defined by, and get their power from, physical characteristics that have a built-in expiry date. But at fourteen we can’t fully know this. It is impossible to feel what will become inevitable; we understand it as happening to others but not to us. Smiling, she handed me a mirror. I looked and saw that I was a little more hidden—that what I thought of as me, was not really me. So, I sat very still, passive, while my eye cried, fascinated that this eye had a mind of its own. Finally, the teacher finished. She examined her creation and was proud. Smiling, she handed me a mirror. I looked and saw that I was a little more hidden—that what I thought of as me, was not really me. Lesson Two: Desire Leads to Suffering When I was fifteen, Judy Welch, a diva of the modelling scene, and the owner of an agency, entered me in the Miss Chin Bikini contest that took place annually on Centre Island in Toronto. We were twenty-two heads of cattle going up for the beauty auction. While uncomfortable, I was still too young to know what I was feeling. I still didn’t fully realize that we were up for scrutiny and judgment. Each of us was an object of comparison, to see who would be most valued. It was 1971, and I wore a white crocheted bikini with daisy-like nipple coverings and brown platform strappy sandals. The contestants lined up before the judges in a back room behind the stage. We were twenty-two heads of cattle going up for the beauty auction. While uncomfortable, I was still too young to know what I was feeling. I still didn’t fully realize that we were up for scrutiny and judgment. Each of us was an object of comparison, to see who would be most valued in this competition of the female form. Following this inspection, we swished along the runway in that contrived, lithe and pseudo-sexual manner to catcalls and Italian exclamations, and it was finally dawning on me that I am an object. It felt a little dangerous. I came in third place. Not the most beautiful, but still in the running. I won a bottle of Baby Duck that I was too young to drink, and my picture was in the Toronto Sun showing me walking, ash blonde hair, sharp jawed, bikini clad. I was a success. Obscene breathy phone calls followed this win, until they stopped. Some version of me was wanted. I was repulsed and afraid, but clearly also wishing to be seen. It was confusing to do what was being asked of me and then putting myself at risk. Thankfully, even then, the news was short-lived. Everything passes. This was the second lesson on vanity: As we attach, so do others, and this grasping is problematic. Lesson Three: The Need for an Inner Life The third lesson came when I went to see a photographer to create my modelling portfolio. Every model needs a book of photos to display her various looks to potential employers. These are her wares. Derek told me to go into the bathroom and ice my nipples and then put my tight black, ribbed cardigan back on. He directed me to partially undo my sweater. Dutifully, I complied. Already, I knew to do what men tell me. I was fifteen years old. The photographic image conveyed something unrecognizably coquettish in black and white: long hair, head tilted and mouth in a pouty kiss. I see now how quickly we get lost in the appearance of things, hooked by the illusion of sex for sale, reinforcing the manufactured desire of the viewer. It became important to cultivate an internal life so that when I ultimately arrived at the invisibility of middle age and beyond, there would be something more than the loss seen in the mirror. But this was a slow and painful learning. My very brief modeling career soon ended after that experience. I didn’t have what it took to pretend in this way, to completely buy into the dream. I realized early that my moment as a focus of male attention, and the power this gave, was time limited. It became important…
