Saved by the belle...

My introduction to beauty was an unconventional one. I'm not talking about aesthetic beauty - the kind that is touted on billboards and in magazines, or is exemplified by the most popular models and actors of the day. I mean real beauty. The kind that stands out in the mind and changes something about the way you view yourself and the world around you.

I was attending the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in the Fall of 1988. Very often, between classes, any number of students could be seen running the streets from one building to another. One afternoon, on one of those particular excursions, I happened upon a sight that has stayed with me for more than two decades. It was late in the day, and many people were making their way home from work. Running for taxis. Waiting for buses. The streets were crowded, and it started to rain, sending hives of people scurrying into nearby alcoves and entryways. It was in one such alcove-a high arched, stone recess-that I saw a woman whose face would someday play a role in saving my life.

She had been badly burned at some point in her life. Her skin was mottled and too pink. She wore a pale bandanna and a long coat buttoned all the way up to her neck. No eyebrows. The cartilage from the end of her nose had burned away. The point of the bone, in concert with her delicate chin, gave her face an almost reptilian look. In the moment that I saw her, she stood at the right outside edge of the alcove, the rain making faint crosshatches at the hem of her coat. Her chin was up, her narrow shoulders held perfectly square. Her posture was ramrod straight and her tight gaze never faltered. She was not alone. To the far left of her, as far as they could be without surrendering their shelter, were a mass of business men and women. Cowering. Huddled together. A sculpture of collapsed umbrellas, tweed coats, damp newspapers, and shoulder pads, trying to stay as far away from the "monster" as possible. Yet there she stood, her seared lips a resolute line across her face. She was the embodiment of dignity, and the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen. I have tears in my eyes just thinking of her now.

On August 5, 2002, my life was not going well. I wanted out. I think of that dark moment often, when everything gets still and quiet. The moment that I sat on the floor of my room, desperate and despairing, with an X-acto knife pressed to the skin of my right wrist. They say that just before you die, your whole life "flashes before your eyes". I can't say that my whole life played out like some Midnight Movie, but there were snapshots. The greatest hits of me: The day I met my brother, fresh from the hospital, and introduced myself, greeting him by his full name and rubbing his head...stepping off the bus the day I started first grade...my parents explaining that they were divorcing, and that we were moving...the endless procession of new schools, and teachers, and friends...learning to fit in wherever I landed...my first time on stage...the first boy I loved...all the smells that had written themselves on my memory...all the music I loved...the face of the last boy I loved. This stream of images hit me in a split second as the point of the blade broke the skin. It was like a sentence spoken too fast, one that I didn't completely understand. The final image stopped me. It lingered like an ellipses...that beautiful, heartbreaking face reached across time to remind me that true dignity can survive anything. I paused long enough for the drop of blood to grow and succumb to gravity, making its way into the palm of my hand and pooling there. I was calm, then, in a way that I had never been before that moment. I put the knife down, got up and went to the bathroom. I washed and bandaged my wrist. I remember looking at myself in the mirror. I can't describe what was different, exactly, but I can tell you that I have never been the same. I've never looked at my life the same. Beauty changed the way I looked at myself and my world. I sit here today because of a stranger whose name I do not know.

It took a couple of years for things to start looking up, but I never again slipped into that dark, downward spiral. Not even when things got worse. Eventually, I stopped feeling that all of my time was borrowed, and got to the business of living and dreaming and working. I can say with absolute certainty that the only regret I have from my life thus far is that I'm not able to reach back through the years to that rainy, cold day in downtown Philadelphia. To hug that woman. To thank her for my life, for every laugh, every tear, every face, and sound, and scent that I would've missed if she hadn't taught me that there IS beauty in this world, and that it isn't merely worth living for, it's worth fighting for.

My wrist healed. There is a faint scar, practically invisible thanks to vitamin E oil and a camouflage of creases. I rub it every once in a while, when I have a particularly difficult decision to make. It gives me comfort in a strange way, much the way I imagine rosary beads comfort a devout Catholic. I've spent a fair amount of time over the last decade being stared at, or pointed at, and even being whispered about. I'm different, too. I revel in the sisterhood of it. My posture gets a little straighter. My shoulders square. My chin lifts ever so slightly, an eyebrow arches, and a faint smile plays across my lips. Let other people cower. I'm too busy being beautiful.

You never know who might be watching.