Dinner in LA
Yesterday, it felt like I was traveling forever. I really just wanted to be home. I hope one of these days that someone invents an instantaneous way to travel. Wouldn’t that be AMAZING? I did have a very interesting layover in LA though. I had two hours at LAX to kill before I my final flight into San Jose. I decided to sit down and have dinner at this grille place. Seating was pretty limited so it wasn’t long before I had to share my table. A middle aged woman with fiery red hair took a seat across from me. I really tried to avoid conversation— I tried to implement as much “I just want to eat my food and relax by myself” body language as possible. When I’m traveling and in a less that excellent mood, I like to just be alone. I really don’t like to deal with people during those times. Just leave me alone, seriously. But she had one of those persistent, bubbly personalities, and she drew me in. I almost felt like she had so much to say that it was bursting inside of her and she just had to find someone that was willing to listen. Laura was her name and she proceeded to tell me about her college experience, about her career, about her travels. She would ask me a question, I would reply with a few sentences and then she would expound for several minutes on whatever struck her chord. By the end of the conversation, I was so engaged and provoked in thought that I really didn’t want to leave her. I wanted to stay and pick her brain, ask her questions, listen to this successful woman who had 20 more years of experience than I—this woman who was living the life that I want.
One of the ideas that she brought up is the concept of real beauty. What is real beauty? From her travels to Europe, she compared the very different views from that of North Americans and Europeans (particularly women). Laura talked about how this French man that she knew asked her, “What is with these American women? They all want to look the same… skinny, blonde hair, dark skin… why don’t they see the beauty in themselves?” She talked about how Europeans aren’t all weird about their bodies. They embrace their differences and have confidence in their own personal beauty. In North America, there is a certain type of beauty that is marketed to us through airbrushed, photoshopped, manipulated advertisements, TV, magazines, and movies. Little girls grow up being inundated with this marketed beauty and the image problems that that creates is extremely destructive. It causes eating disorders and other forms of self-abuse, depression, frustration, stress, lack of confidence, you name it. Most women aren’t naturally a size 2– most women don’t have blonde hair and they don’t have perfectly tanned skin. Everyone is different. Everyone possess a beauty that is uniquely theirs. That is real beauty.
It is interesting to think about the people that cross our paths everyday. Some of them are around for a lifetime, some for a few years, some for a few months. Then there are those people that only cross our paths for a matter of minutes. I spent about 45 minutes with Laura, and she made a deeper impression than some people do that are present in my life for years.