Tell Me A Story

Dreams Of Beauty is a column in which writers offer their ideas, visions, and streams of consciousness on the meaning of beauty in 500 words.

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Scraps of blue fabric. Royal, cornflower. Ironed and folded. Soon to be my daughter’s Halloween costume. She wants to be Sleeping Beauty in the blue dress.

The blue dress is very important to her. The red rose is very important to her. I ordered an artificial flower just for the occasion, it arrived in a massive cardboard box and was the only thing inside the box. She swings it around the house like a baseball bat. The blonde hair is very important to her. Reading our book before bed, she points to Aurora on the page and says, “On Halloween I want my hair to be this.” My daughter with dark, dark hair. Brown eyes. “On Halloween I’ll have this, okay?”

I don’t want her to want blonde hair. I tell her we’ll think about it. She is three. I love her face more than you could ever love another face. I love how she rubs her nose when she’s tired. It’s unbecoming. I love how she sings to herself, complete nonsense. Acts humiliated when I ask if it's a song I know. All of her freckles, I love them. Bottom of her left foot. Underside of her nose. Top of her cheek. Another on her temple, harder to find. You imagine your daughter and then you have a daughter. It is unbelievable.

When I put on makeup, she asks for some. I tell her to close her eyes. I pretend to paint her face. She is happy. Every time I see her sleeping peacefully, I know time is trying to kill me. She finds a pair of my cowboy boots in the closet, struggles to put them on. They reach the very top of her thighs and she laughs at herself in the mirror for what feels like eternity. I want her to smile at her own reflection, just like that, forever.

Eternity is not enough. When I was pregnant I craved mirrors. Every surface, there we were. It was that beautiful. As a girl I wanted to be pretty and thin and kissed. It was very important to me. You would not believe how much time I could spend thinking about myself. Locking myself in my room was important to me. Cutting my hair off with a disposable razor was important to me.

I have been lucky. Alive, on this earth, with so many soft things. My daughter asks me to tell her a story. In the story every character is awake. They age. See the sun rise and set. Marvel at the sky, how it holds birds that sing and rain that pours. It’s gorgeous.