Alia, Beauty Unveiled
It was Sunday morning — the kind they keep trying to write songs about.
I had my earbuds in, listening to the news drift by in that strange blend of gravity and absurdity that only human life seems able to produce. Outside my window, a pair of doves had built a nest under the eave. The babies were chirping, the parents coming and going, and through the hearing assist, I could hear it all — every soft coo, every tiny movement, like the air itself had been turned up just enough to reveal its texture.
And then, without any real transition, I found myself back in the Meaningful Conversations circle from the night before.
Not remembering it so much as… seeing it again.
There were people there who, by ordinary standards, might be called “odd-looking.” A face arranged differently than expected. A body that didn’t follow the usual symmetry. One woman in particular — the side of her face had fallen from a stroke, visibly, undeniably so.
You couldn’t not see it.
But I also couldn’t stop there — there was a more prominent presence emanating from Alia.
That’s the part that changed.
As I gazed, the feature that might once have registered as disfigurement didn’t disappear.
It integrated.
It became… decoration.
Not in the sense of something added on, but something uniquely expressive — like a brushstroke in a painting that only makes sense once you see the whole. The fallen face didn’t need to be overlooked or redeemed. It already belonged. It read as right.
More than right — it was beautiful in a way that included itself completely.
And the same was true of the others.
The “oddness” I might have named before revealed itself as availability. As if, in the absence of a carefully maintained façade, something more direct had come forward — something unguarded, luminous, unmistakably present.
I realized then that I wasn’t having a reaction to them.
I was seeing —- them. Their perfect human, brilliance. Beyond the body.
It was like standing inside one of David Simons’ portraits — except there was no frame, no gallery wall, no distance to make it “art.” These were living, speaking human beings. Moving, breathing, meeting my eyes.
And there it was:
I see you.
All of you.
Not in spite of anything.
Not past anything.
But with everything included — in its place, in its expression, in its quiet and undeniable glory.