Stripped Bare By Beauty

For those who know me personally, it is no secret that I am a pretty dour individual, prone to bad moods, cynicism, and overall melancholy. Given my experiences in my nearly thirty years of life, over half of which I have spent incarcerated, I believe this is acceptable; the sun doesn’t shine at night.

Over the years, I have learned to find inspiration in the darkness that dominates my life and the negativity of the world in which I live. My writing and music reflect this, being filled with subject matter like drug use, suicide, violence, hate, anger and references to demons, evil, and other things that show a disdain for life. Like Poe, the ugliness in life is often my muse.

These images, however, compose only a small part of my being even though they dominate my exterior world. I do see the beauty in life, though my standard of beauty is hard to meet. Usually I find it only exhibited in the innocence of childhood, the subtleties that express the love of family and friendship, and the rawness of undefiled nature. Rarely do things that are created by man make the grade. When I do see beauty, I am never inspired by it, preferring to simply admire the awesomeness of its power.

Almost nobody has ever seen this in me, even the rare person who has seen me stripped of the many masks I wear. Since I have been incarcerated for most of my life, to witness this is near impossible. With that in mind, I will share with you the most recent event that elicited such a response in me.

I am an avid fan of figure skating and ice dancing and have been since I was a child. I prefer women’s figure skating and pairs dancing over the male side of the sport, but only because the male side is almost comically acrobatic. For me, the sport is about beauty, emotion, and performance, as opposed to structured athleticism.

Two skaters in this year’s Olympic Women’s Figure Skating Championship left me tearfully stunned by their performances during the competition. The first skater, Canadian Bronze Medalist Joannie Rochette, is an emotional story. Two days prior to her short-program performance, her mother died of a massive heart attack. In spite of her heartbreaking loss, she took the ice and gave a miraculous performance, leaving her in a quite unexpected third place. It was her free skate performance, however, that was truly amazing.

Though one of the elite skaters in the world, Ms. Rochette is not considered to be one of the best, especially when compared to the top two ranked performers, who are far and above the rest of the competition. Her free skate did not reflect this. As emotional and well skated as her short program was, her free skate was, by far, the best performance of her life, leaving her only 2.5 points shy of a silver medal. This was overshadowed by the emotion expressed in her performance and the beauty of her spiral sequence. Though technically on point, the way that you could read her love for her mother and see her reflecting on the life they shared together in her eyes, as well as knowing her story and the courage it took to compete left me, and the commentators, speechless. I have never experienced such a thing in my life. It was simply beautifully wonderful.

The second skater, Kim Yun-Na, the gold medalist from the Republic of Korea, also brought me to tears in both her short program and free skate performances. Both were near perfect technically, and the most difficult in element ever attempted, earning her the highest score ever recorded by an amazing 18 points. This fact in itself is awe-inspiring.

The beauty of her performances was unrivaled by anything I have ever seen. The choreography, the lines of Kim Yun-Ya’s body as she performed the elements of the program, the technical precision of the jumps, the grace and flow of her movements, the music she skated to, and her genuine expressions all combined to become the most beautiful man-made creation I have ever witnessed. The individual nature of the performance, the active nature of the sport, and the personal element of the moment made it an experience that can never be repeated or experienced in the same way again. It, too, was wonderfully beautiful.

The story behind Joannie Rochette’s performance and what it aided her in accomplishing was what made her achievement so beautiful and meaningful. Whereas it was the elements themselves and the way they were performed that put the beauty in Kim Yun-Na’s performance. Both amazed me and inspired me enough to write about my experience. Most of all, they allowed me to move a bit further away from the negativity that dominates my exterior and have given me the opportunity to share a part of myself that few realize I possess.

Ugliness may be my muse, but true beauty is my savior.