40daysbefore40 day 12: naked beauty

poorly today...havent seen the outside world, instead nestled in my womb warm home with soups and teas and baths...and the stillness of a saturday rocking my bones...juicy avocado eaten like a mango...cherry liquor chocolates hoping for a hit to take the edge off my cold...candlelit meditation in dark room of monochrome shapes

i caught a glimpse of myself at a passing mirror...no make up, wild hair, favoured dressing gown...vulnerable...naked...moi

so of course i took a photo or two..my face...and my birthmark

one of the the people i love in the world is an artist called miranda july...film maker, artist, writer and prone to performing poetry of the soul n human nuance n nature...quirky, cool and profoundly beautiful

i came across her book of short stories over the summer, and i was deeply touched when on page 169 there was a story called 'birthmark'

as far as i am aware noone has written about having a birthmark before...or certainly not in the manner that she writes..its a beautiful story and touched me...i got it, i get it...i had to tell her this

i didnt...until now

my dare for today...i wrote her, and this is what i said:

''dear miranda
ok...so i am writing you finally after a while of procrastinating plundering the 'geez you rock lady!!'...
this is a thank you letter, like one of those that as a kid ya mom made ya write for the present you received...or at least you had to marker pen your names scribble at the end :-)
thank you for writing a story about the woman with the birthmark..i have never read a tale of its beauty as the main player in the stage of a life before...you see, i have a birthmark...over my left lip and up to just beneath my eye...at school my friend said it looked like the map of england...handy that i lived here then i guess
i didnt like it...years of strange laser like quests to fade it away...to mark out the mark that outs my beauty, that outs my mark in the place and face of the world
it never fully went away...after uni i left it, covered it up with make up and pretended it had gone..it hadnt
i remember the day i decided that i didnt want to hide it anymore...just back from thailand travels...sat in my bathroom getting ready to go to work, to face the day, the world...and i cried..i sat on the edge of the bath and cried..make up in one hand...it was time..to go bare and bear my beauty out...for it to see daylight and other's gaze

lovers have loved it, kissed it and mapped it with the edges of their fingertips...that has often made me cry
you know i go for days weeks months without remembering its there...and then, i dont know, a change in the wind's blow perhaps, or a certain look, a remark, maybe feelin low, and i recall it sitting in place silently always there on my face, on my lip
im fascinated by tattoos, tribal markings and scars...my birthmark my tribal mark, my symbol of my place in the face of the world
could i live without it? i dont think i can anymore..do i want to?...i know i wouldnt be me, and then...who would i be? where would i go to?
thank you for writing that story miranda...thank you for whispering thro your words n pen n ink of us...thank you for your beauty that you echo and mirror of our humaness out into the world''

xxx