Faminine
Doing ultra: that awkward moment when you feel that among the tribe of triathlete ladies you are still different.
Rachell Wall posted a text copied below “I don’t want to look pretty, I want to live in a world where it’s irrelevant”
I got lost in the lists of hundreds of “Amens”.
I was taken for my looks for so many years with “You look …. ” (“pretty”, “great”, ” beautiful”, “gorgeous”, “tied”, ” are you OK? ) by people that for reasons of language or cultural barrier could not connect with who I actually am, that I’m coming from another side.
I know my body sometimes looks from externally as what people see from outside as their version of what they call pretty. And the way people perceive my looks from outside while not seeing the way I am as a person for different reasons, became so irrelevant to me so long ago that learned to balance the habit of keeping looks the way I , not society around me, wanted to look like, chose to look like, along with “training looks”.
There was time I looked goth, I colored my hair blue, fire-red or charcoal-black years before it became fashionable among teenagers, I wore Russian high hills and short skirts, Indian sprees and salwar-kameezes. Office attire and beach – bum shorts. I finally was happy to find the tribe of athletes ladies that don’t care about looks.
Turns out they actually do and that there is an underestimated importance of an internal cry those ladies carry unspoken so much that it’s time to heal this up.
Among the list of ” Amen-sista”-s I have missed seeing the simple acceptance of power of natural female beauty: the powerful Devine feminine beauty.
I do enjoy giving way to the inner feminine to shine through the looks even during races. I love wearing make-up and pretty dresses for races. I love being visible with the “prettied up” looks altogether after running another back-to-back marathon or swimming for half a day with goggles marks branded into my face.
After miles and miles and multiple hours and hours of dancing in the woods on trails I love getting back to civilization and prettying myself up. I love living up the feminine part of my human experience as much as I love living up the rest of my life.
“What you look like is so far down on the list of things that actually do really matter that you barely even remember it.”
What I look like is part of my strategy of not going mad playing with my wild side for days on trails. When you tap into that wild side for long enough, what you look like keeps reminding you that you are not just an animal in the woods – you are human and you are a girl – human.
It’s somewhat between feeling like a homeless man on streets of a big city looking for a mirror and soap to prove to himself that he still exists as a human. And feeling being seen only for the color of hair and light skin being from Russia.
It’s not un-important, I think. I do think that it’s that part of human experience that does also matter.
It’s also my way to proclaiming to the world that the Devine feminine is beautiful, pretty together with that strength. Moreover: by using the “inner goddess” strength I get to experience all the ultra-adventures with even brighter experience.
The trail is She as I ask Mother Nature to share it’s power after hours out there, and I get it. The ocean is Earth’s breath rocking me as I merge with it, not deny it.
I don’t want to exclude this feminine part of me or set it “down the list”.
I know that if girls would try to exclude or suppress the feminine from their world, and essentially the world around them, trying to be ” just fellow human” – that would be a tremendous loss to this world. And would harm women more then bring good.
I think this world needs these outstanding strong ladies leading this world to shape it up with the new “upgraded” definition of feminine beauty without denial of it.
I also think that the most important point here to communicate to the world is – freedom. That all these strong outstanding ladies are entitled to choose to look whatever they decide to choose to look like. And by denying one part of these looks we might deny this freedom as well.
“Run happy. Run free”
Below is the post by Rachell Wall.
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