SATC: Circus Act

“Um, excuse me,” I turn, yanking a headphone out of my ear. “I think you dropped this.” A girl hands me a thin white envelope, nondescript and insignificant save for the contents within.I gratefully tuck the envelope, which holds the earnings of my lucrative job (shelving books at the Brown University Bookstore), and continue walking down Thayer Street. When I see my friends, I shout and run forward to catch them. Together, we walk into Urban Outfitters, each on a different mission.Sophie and I head straight to the intimates section. Among the underwear and bras that actually belong in this category are tank tops and bodysuits, those notorious items that lie in the liminal space between everyday clothing and lingerie. I love this section. It makes me feel feminine and powerful at the same time (which shouldn’t feel like a contradiction, but often does). It makes me want to buy one of those lacy bralettes, the ones that never fit me quite right and cost more than one of the shirts I’d wear over them. The ones I know I’ll take off within hours, slyly under my shirt if I’m in public or, if I’m in my room, with an exaggerated sigh of relief. We try everything on; occasionally, a head pokes around the corner of a dressing room door, asking for opinions or help zipping/buttoning/disentangling. I buy two shirts that look more or less the same, thinking guiltily of the paycheck now stowed safely in my backpack. That weekend, I wear both. One makes me feel confident, sexy, and feminine/powerful, all the things we’re supposed to feel regardless of what we’re wearing. The next night, in the other, I’m uncomfortable and self-conscious, looking forward to the end of the night when I can take it off in my room with one of the aforementioned sighs of relief. When I finally get around to depositing my paycheck, I begin to inspect my guilt. I should be allowed to buy myself something I don’t need, right? I should be able to self-indulge without negatively labeling the purchase as self-indulgent. I should be able to, for lack of a more original axiom, treat myself. Why do I feel guilty about this, then? Is it about the money, I wonder, or is it about what I’ve decided to spend it on?Later in the week, I try the two shirts on again. The mirror hanging on my door is warped, so much so that my friends keep begging me to either order a new one or just take it down for god’s sake. I should invest in a strapless bra, I think, adjusting the second, less comfortable option. But what a waste of money (as if the shirt itself wasn’t). Examining my fun-house reflection, I can’t tell if the decisions I make, specifically surrounding the image I see in the mirror, are based on what I want or what I want other people to see.Outward appearances are important because they’re how we recognize each other and ourselves. Sometimes we make choices in an attempt to make our physical appearances reflect what we see on the inside. My friend Carly, for example, recently dyed her hair blonde, her head burning as the bleach seeped into her skin. She made the decision during what she calls “a mild crisis of self,” a time when things were changing and she couldn’t tell if it was for the better or not. She was trying, she said, to reclaim her own image, her own definition of beauty. It still hurt.“In a physical sense,” she texted me, along with an artfully executed selfie, “ur scalp also burns when it’s happening and it’s like i was stripping away some aspect of an old self.” The brunette girl in old pictures feels distant, part of her only in a vestigial sense. Her new reflection is physical proof of the mental and emotional changes she's undergone, her outward image having caught up with the rest of her like thunder to lightning.Sometimes, however, we mold ourselves to reflect other people's ideas of beauty rather than our own, hurting ourselves (more deeply than the stinging of bleach) in the process. The other day, a friend of mine waxed another girl’s underarms, an overall traumatic experience for both; my sister once developed a rash from an outfit she insisted on wearing even though she knew it was asking for trouble; high heels, my mom jokes, were designed so that it's harder for women to make a quick and soundless getaway. Apparently, beauty is pain, and while most of us have acknowledged that this sentiment isn't necessarily acceptable, we still say the joke as if it has to be true, as if beauty must inherently presuppose pain. But what kind of beauty is manifested if it is based in pain? And why does it feel like we often inflict this pain on ourselves? This is a problem bound up with ideas of femininity, one that garnered enough notoriety to be given a name: the “male gaze.” (Not to be confused with the “male gays,” as a girl at my high school thought the term was until the end of her senior year. She was often very confused in class discussions.)The “male gaze” describes the way in which women, and the world in general, are understood and interpreted almost singularly from the male point of view. Even as women, we are trained to believe that the default perspective is that of a heterosexual, cis-gendered, white male, and we unconsciously act accordingly.The process of trying to figure out what I do for myself (as opposed to what I do for the socially constructed male onlooker) can quickly turn into a confusing, self-criticizing mess, and I honestly don’t know if it’s worth it (or even possible, for that matter) to neatly separate the two. Sometimes, doing what I want to do and doing what other people want me to do overlap; sometimes, I actively consider what other people want when making decisions.Standing in front of my misshapen reflection, I wonder what mirror I'm looking into, and who made it. Not the literal product that Bed, Bath, & Beyond sold me in August, but the lens through which I see myself, and through which I believe other people see me. Beauty, just like everything else, is based on interactions between language, image, and experience. I don’t think beauty should hurt, but I don’t really know what my definition of beauty is. I just want to look in the mirror and see what I see, rather than what I think/want other people to see. I want to look at other people and see them, rather than seeing a reflection of myself or what I want to see.I’ve been thinking of beauty in terms of reflection, of what I see in mirrors (both physical and figurative). There’s no way to connect meaningfully with other people, or myself for that matter, if I’m only looking at the surface. But that doesn’t mean I need to renounce image entirely, take all the mirrors out of my room, and never again look in the dark windows of the Biomedical Center as I walk by. I’m still going to wear that uncomfortable top because I think it looks good.On Monday morning, I’m going to get dressed as usual, searching for a balance between comfort and style. This means giving equal weight to language, image, and experience; it means listening equally to myself and to other people. This is a tightrope walk and a juggling act, but in way, it seems fitting — after all, it was a fun-house mirror that got me thinking about this in the first place.Image via.