Yesterday was a special day
Yesterday was a special day.
A day of reconciliation, of courage, of madness and of peace. Yesterday I did something I never thought I could do in my life, and not just because I was naked in the middle of a street in the capital of Chile at half past nine in the morning, while the city was starting to wake up. No, for me it was more than that. I’ve always liked photography; since I was 14 I’ve enjoyed having a camera in front of me, playing with clothes, hair, poses, letting myself go, and the result was always the same: looking as beautiful as possible, feeling perfect for a few minutes, choosing an outfit that made me look thinner, shoes that made my legs look longer.
I did theater from the age of five, and at first I took photos only to express something more than a pretty face (because I’m not one). Honestly, I don’t know when that became secondary and all I hoped for when the photos arrived was: please, please let me look pretty. And what is being pretty? I think a word comes to everyone’s mind immediately: thin. Being thin, slender, having rolls only in your head and not on your belly; that’s being perfect.
Yesterday everything was different. It was just me, naked, like a being that didn’t fit with the landscape, the buildings, the street. Yesterday there were no clothes to cover the scoliosis scar running down my whole back, no makeup to hide that eternal white spot on my cheek, no shoes to cover my feet, which I don’t like, no hairstyle to hide my forehead that’s not five but six fingers high, no underwear to cover what supposedly should be covered: my small breasts, my big thighs, my waist curvier on one side than the other, my arms with more hair than I’d like. All of that was exposed.
I never thought I could do it, because I’m like almost every Chilean woman: insecure about herself, never good enough. And no, weighing X kilos doesn’t mean I’m happy and satisfied in my skin, it doesn’t mean everything in my life is in place. I’m insecure; there are days when I get out of the shower and all I want is to look exactly like those magazine girls who went through 6 hours of makeup and 2 of hair, dressed by a designer, sitting in front of the best photographer in the world who then makes them look like beings from another galaxy. Do I really expect to look like them after getting out of the shower in the morning? Yes, sometimes I do.
Posing for Pralad was a real test, something I owed myself, a reconciliation. Me, and nothing covering who I am today at 23. This is my body, and I think I should love it more, I think I should take better care of it, I think I should stop being so cruel, so vile, so unkind to it. Our body is our home until the last day of our lives; our skin is the coat we wear from the moment we cry and come into the world. Our eyelashes, long or short, keep dust out of our eyes; our sometimes so hated feet let us step firmly, run toward the person we love; our arms let us hug a stranger; our belly is so powerful it can hold a life if we decide so; our nails can be painted any color we want, just like our hair; our body hair is the trace of our ancestors.
Yesterday was a completely different experience, and I can’t find the words to describe how amazing it was. Infinite thanks to the photographer’s professionalism, for the words of encouragement, for making me feel beautiful, just as I came into the world.