Musings: odds and ends

I was at the post office today sending a couple Christmas packages. One to Wiscosin. One to Afghanistan. The line wasn't terrible, like I expected and there was a woman ahead of me with what seemed to be a boatload of packages to send. She was very made up. Hair dyed. Skin tanned. She had on tall 70's heels that kept her suspended above the ground and tight jeans around skinny legs. Across the counter from her was a postal worker with fluffy unkempt grey hair and a Mr. Roger's navy blue sweater. I started to think about natural beauty versus manipulated beauty, and the postal workers started to look more beautiful than this woman. She began to look strange. I realize that beauty is said to be subjective and someone could look at this woman and find her devastatingly beautiful. I really felt that in applying different techniques, such as hair dying, and using certain products to become more attractive she had really stepped further away from it. There is something captivatingly beautiful about freckles and eyes that are not lined with mascara, skin that is not evenly toned, hair that is unkempt. In all our making up and adding to we move further away from what we were intended to look like. I get this sense sometimes when I see a woman completely made up to look ravishing, that we are being duped. The image is being put forth that this woman is beautiful, but it doesn't feel real and that loss makes me think, "yes she is, but not entirely."At the same time every morning I brush on mascara thinking I need that technique and that product to avoid looking tired, that is avoid looking bad. And maybe that's not entirely true.

Here are some other odds and ends I'm thinking through:
The walls in our apartment are textured and not smooth and when stare at them for long enough I want to move out as soon as possible. I don't understand why they texturized the walls. It makes me think further about an article I wrote in high school for our paper about all the walls in the school being white and its link to low student morale.

My mom made the comment to me that their pastor had made that note that Mary, as in the Mother of Jesus, was entirely normal. She was bothered by it. I was bothered by it. I read a chapter in my Patristic theology book on Mary and the Saints and found out that the Christian tradition has honored and not worshipped martyrs, saints, Mary since the second century. I'd like to hear more on the subject because this Advent I'm very curious about the stories of Mary and Elizabeth. Also, in my reading it said that there has from early on been a link between Eve and Mary, in close to the same line of thought that Christ is the new Adam. Never thought of it that way.

I'm not going "home" for Christmas and I think this is making me sad. At the same time it's interesting to look at our tree and think, "This is our tree, our very first tree." I like that part.