Mary Kay, Underwires & Beauty

I’ve understated it all before and I’ll attempt to do it again today: Arab women are beautiful. [And a little awkward.] Drop dead gorgeous. Their strong features, their skin tones, their olive oil soaked hair, their big [usually] brown eyes, their shy, yet gregarious personalities. They’re just incredible.

And I get to represent the entire Western world to them. However I dress or do my hair or makeup is how they think EVERYONE in America does it. Then they get on my Facebook and look at my old pictures from college and start comparing me on an average 100 degree Tuesday to how I looked when at a bridal shower for a friend 5 years ago.

“Ya Sarah, why you no look pretty today?
I see you on da Facebook
and you look the sooo prrrreetty.
Why today no?”

Hmmm…….. Thanks.

I learned really quickly that Arab women love to wear “too much” makeup [it’s all relative, isnt’ it?] and like it when I do, too. At this point, I would like to invite you to think of 90% of the women I’m around each day as Mary Kay consultants. [Disclaimer: In the world of loose powder, I’m married to Mary Kay.] But ya know how Mary Kay consultants are ALWAYS done up, with lip liner and ridiculously meticulous eye shadow, etc.? That’s what I’m surrounded with. They don’t really understand my “daytime makeup” effect I’m trying to go for, especially since I’m out on the streets, in taxis and by myself as a “shagra” [blonde girl] most of the time.

As they kiss me hello, they inspect my eyebrows and “mustache” and jaw for extra hairs. They pity my short eyelashes and comment on how thin my eyeliner is. They playfully pat my belly and check my nails. For women who cover everything up and seemingly hide from the outside world, engaging in a friendship with them is like entering a beauty pageant.

“Ya Shagra, [no one knows my name]
are you wearing an underwire today?”

This all goes down as an ordinary pat down. I keep smiling and talking and treasure it in my heart.

My most epic “feel-skis” came when I was imitating my best friend, Amina. She commands a room upon entering and walks with the confidence of a movie star. Ain’t no paparazzi out today, girl. Chill. But she has a special way of making everyone feel loved. I pranced around the salon, tucked in my shirt, went up on my tiptoes and put on sunglasses, pretending to wave at people across the room, while incessantly flipping my hair. And as I was unnecessarily tripping over Amina and her sister, “Fatima” grabbed my calf. She then moved up my legs, disturbed by the muscle I had in them, comparing them to her own. Before I knew it, I was in a stance similar to the one you take at airport security when they “wand” you, only my shirt was pulled up to my neck and they were poking my stomach and ribs.

Yes. I was standing in a living room, with two women in their 30’s, my arms spread wide and my shirt pulled up around my chest. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there, like at a doctor’s office, waiting for it to end. [I told you they were awkward…]

Suddenly, I heard giggles. From little boys. Watching from the balcony. How. Humiliating. Fatima’s sons, ages 7 and 4, were watching this, and only God knows for how long. Amina and Fatima yelled at the boys like they were mad, chasing them away, but when I turned back to them, they were laughing and calling the boys, “Sweethearts.” Right.

Though I’m not regularly this intimately examined, it is a daily occurrence. It’s a small, yet ever-present concern of mine: being accepted. Being found worthy. Mostly, I think I’ll never measure up, because the expectations are too high, genetically impossible or mostly, unknown. “I’m so different.” But I’ve come to find that in my friendships with women, there are things that just go beyond language and culture. There’s a core to us as women: We desire beauty. And we want to be found beautiful.

Sometimes, being “blonde” or “white” or “just foreign” in the land of Arabs proved to be… the worst thing ever. Ha. But, it was mostly God’s goodness to me, His favor in my life. It came in the most peculiar ways, but His favor is great and I am grateful, and my friends and I were always laughing.

I think it may be true: that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

Friends dressing me up. :)

After all, when someone tells you, “You’re beautiful,”
in Arabic, your response should always be:
“Your eyes are beautiful.”

And then we say, “Alhumdilallah.”
“Praise be to God.”

The Creator of all Beauty.

On Being Beautiful

Commenting Rule starting now:
No one’s allowed to comment and tell my how pretty I am.
I know I’m darling, etc., so just skip this part and think about yourself in this context.
I’m not fishing for compliments, just sharing what’s goin’ on. Thanks. :)]

I want to tell you a little secret: I have never thought of myself as being a pretty girl.

But then I came to the Middle East.

And it was here that all my suspicions were confirmed. Exponentially.

Every day I am surrounded by these gorgeous women, with olive skin and long, dark, luscious hair. Their eyebrows are amazing and face-framing, and their usually dark eyes sparkling beneath their ridiculous eyelashes are really just to die for. They can do this belly dancing stuff, where they, like, detach their rib cages and hips from their vertebrae, as they move for hours without tiring. [I can last about 4 seconds and then grow too self-conscious.] There’s this yelping celebratory call that they do… [I’ve had to practice it and still only get it about one out of three times.] They have an eye for the aesthetic, and can put outfits, accessories, makeup and hijabs together like I’ve never seen. They are always, always, always dressed up more than me, with full makeup and hair done. I’ve never seen any of them a mess. And then there’s just the confidence that they exude—can you tell I’m jealous and insecure yet?

And so, everyday as I’m faced with their sheer beauty, they… get to look at me.
The thrown-together American who’s, some days, just surviving.

I told some of my friends one day that I wanted to dye my hair black.
An unprecedented cry rang out through my office:
“Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t you TOUCH your hair color! It’s perfect.
Don’t you realize that it’s the exact shade… shades… we want?!
We’ll kill you if you dye your hair. Absolutely kill you.”
[I believe them.]
Four or five of them swarmed me,
yanking my hair in opposite directions to put it over their own faces,
discussing, in rapid-fire Arabic, what color they would want as their own.

While I was only half joking [I really did want to dye my hair darker],
I was surprised by this flattery.
I didn’t know they liked something, anything, about my appearance.
And then, to add to my surprise, they started bathing me in compliments.
[Well, not directed at me, just about me. But I’ll take what I can get.]
They started talking about my eyes, skin color,
“bone structure” [can you really see it in my face??],
dimples, smile, teeth.
[They’re concerned about my eyebrows, though. That makes 10 of us.]
I was in shock.
This whole time I was feeling like an inadequate, ugly duckling
among these voluptuous, confident swans.
I was sincerely feeling bad for the woman I sit directly across from every day.
She has to stare me in the face.

This has really started me thinking.
About how we always want what we can’t have.
But even more than that: how just being different is beautiful.
To them, I’m the exotic American girl, “Shagra” [blondie],
who they’ve started dressing because I was wearing things like…
the yellow dress outfit… because I just don’t care.
But when I try to look like them, I get scolded because I’m abandoning or trying to alter the things that make me beautiful—
to them.

Recently, one of my friends got a whole head full of blonde highlights.
When I saw her, I said the necessary hair-change comments.
She asked me if I liked it and I told her “No.”
"Ya, Sarah!!! Whhhhyyyy???? It’s like YOU!!”
And I told her, “I don’t want you to look like me, I want you to look like you.
You’re much more beautiful in that way.
But don’t worry—you can have him change it back, no problem.”
She was disappointed with this answer.
But later, she walked back in, as the original Lubna.
I congratulated and praised her 10 times over.

And so goes the struggle
to assimilate and acculturate yourself,
in appearance and behavior.

My friends love teaching me
to dance like them, wrap a hijab or sing in Arabic.
But they really despise when I try to make alterations to myself.
Every day, every encounter is a little bit of a test.
How “American” should I be in this context?
Should I celebrate my way or theirs?
Should I fix my hair the way I like it, or the dumb way they like it?
When I’m just being myself, in the midst of their language and culture,
they find me the most beautiful. And, ironically, I do, too.