Unseen Beauty: A Journal

Semantics

Words are strange little things, lines that we invest with emotion, meaning, and relevance. They are concrete, definite, denotative, reliable in the meanings that they convey, and yet equally vague, relying upon the receiver to endow them with context, relevance, and import. We take them for granted, using them in ways that communicate effectively, yet tell a great deal about us as individuals.

Take, for example, a tiny word. Writing my own mini-biography here, I let the thoughts spill to the page, taking their cramped, black forms, and then re-reading the paragraph, a single word stood out to me as inherently different from the descriptors and writings of my friends. I instinctively described myself as a woman whereas they described themselves as girls. How odd.


The anomaly stayed with me, my brain teasing at the semantic puzzle in the moments when it had a free moment, asking what the difference meant; was I in some way defective, old? I am still unsure of the answer, but after two weeks of searching, I do have some insight: I am different.

In my early and formative years, I spent most of my playtime wandering around the house arrayed in a variety of bedsheets, slips, and scarves, being tortured by imaginary evil queens and being rescued by a myriad of handsome, romantic princes who always thought that I was more lovely than any other maiden. Yet the fact that princesses consistently had lovely names like Aurora, Beatrice, and Ariana broke my heart. My name was ugly, and I would never be a heroine because of it. And then, at long last, I found a heroine in a book called Peter Pan who shared my name, and I clung to that book as if it were the last piece of driftwood in a heaving sea. I read it over and over, I played out a thousand embellishments to its plot, and I fell in love with its characters.

For better or worse, however, J. M. Barrie’s book is not the children’s book promoters usually treat it as. It is a book which can be read to children, but which is saturated with the satire and themes of an elder soul. In the story, only one of the children really understands the other side of growing up, and, in consequence, understands the importance of forever remaining a child in a far less direct manner. That one character is the heroine.

Perhaps I drew my concept of girlhood and womanhood from the pages of Peter Pan. Perhaps I drew it from the bevy of old and older women who comprised my social group. Regardless, I find myself as an adult in a very different position from most of my friends. I have no desire to be a girl in most contexts. To me, a girl is powerless, playful, innocent. When I read the word, I see a young teenager on the cusp of adulthood, her dress white, her hair honey colored, its waves caught away from her face in broad satin ribbons. Or I see the child I once was, dressed in torn jeans my father’s plaid flannel shirts, climbing trees and sitting for hours, chiseling the rocks around my parents’ pool until they were smooth. Those images are indeed beautiful to me, but they are not how I see myself.

Instead, I instinctively see myself as a woman, a bit taller and more curvaceous, an instinctive caretaker, where a girl has the luxury and the shortcoming of thinking only of herself. Like J. M. Barrie’s hero, I aspire to the elegance and mystery that only a woman holds. I would hope that I have still that kiss in the corner of my mouth which I have the power to give only to one man. In honesty, I admit that I must describe myself as a woman because I long for the power that appellation will always convey in my mind, and I willingly bear the burden that the word carries in exchange.

Of course, no woman exists without sharing space with the girl she once was. I still find peace in climbing trees and in the darkness of the tree shadows, free from human contact and the responsibilities it inherently brings. I still tell myself outlandish stories in which I feature as the heroine over a soapy sink of dishes, and I still dream of piloting a space ship while I steer my car to work. But a girl? No, not me, by choice. I prefer to be a woman who can indulge in her girlhood, not a girl who must occasionally be a woman.