Reimagining Beauty – O is for Outside the Box
If you are new to this blog, welcome!
For my Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, I am writing about how storytellers, writers, parents, teachers (in other words, just about anyone) can reimagine beauty to be more inclusive. That way, people with disabilities, varying body types and racial backgrounds, etc. (in other words, anyone) can feel and be recognized by the world as the beauties they truly are.
Reimagining Beauty – O is for Outside the Box
People thought that he was rude, he
Only cared for outer beauty –
Didn’t see the rest of her
And so he missed the best of her.
To match a form, conform what’s that?
The wishes of a bureaucrat.
She could turn the cold to summer
Marching to a different drummer.
So he changed, knocked down the blocks
And noticed life outside the box.
There is beauty in the people who forge their own paths. I am not talking about the ones who do it to make a glitzy public relations splash, but the brave souls who honor their instincts. I know someone who started up a business re-purposing old, boring furniture. By creating custom-designed fabric art for each piece, everyday furniture is transformed into original, “funexpected” artwork. Where people in the furniture business in the Hudson Valley tend to either do their own woodworking or deal in antiques, my friend chose a different, “outside the box” furniture business. It is beautiful.
It is also brave. It takes courage to try something your own way, something that is not prescribed or proscribed. Not having the directions puts you on edge because you are at the edge. The impulse to do or live outside the box is raw and real and gorgeous. Protagonists in stories do this all the time. People in life do too.
This impulse to go outside the box, to stand at the “edge,” can be read on a glowing person’s face, in the sparkle of a personality, and in the force of magnetic charm.
When you tell and write stories, don’t forget the beauty of this quality. Anyone can possess it, anyone can feel beautiful for being outside the box. Anyone can be included in such a definition of beauty no matter what culture, genetic background, age, or if a life experience altered appearance or ability.
Follow the leader is a game, it doesn’t have to be a lifestyle. Honor the beauty in those who follow their own leads and live outside the box. They are beautiful people indeed.
Off the path and off the pages,
Offbeat living is outrageous,
Beautiful, and quite courageous.
Outside the box can be contagious…
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Copyright 2014 The Storycrafters. All rights reserved.
Storytelling Matters 
I love the poetry and couldn’t agree more. I was just watching a show on botched plastic surgeries. Naturally, 90% of the stories were about women. Our society should be ashamed for glorifying beauty and making women feel they aren’t good enough.
Thanks for reading and supporting this…. and following :). Your point about society…I am with you there. Not only does it make ‘typical’ women feel they aren’t good enough, but anyone who is unique and one-of-a-kind as well. All of that is what my series is about…
Yes, thus is something to strive for!
Yup. Not the easiest path, but it can be neat. Outside the box people need medals for bravery!
You are a good example of going outside the box. Like all who plot their own courses, you present the world with many uniquely pleasant surprises.
Wow 🙂 That is so sweet.
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