In Her Own Right

What is it about her that makes you call her ‘a woman of substance’ then?

Is it purely in the way she holds herself, aloof from the world and yet very much grounded in its ways? Is it that she is somehow slightly above it all – so that working within what is expected is no longer her struggle: she has merely burst out of the box?

Suddenly there is this immense creativity and freedom in her ways, like a yawn and a stretch unchecked. Your skin prickles when you are within her radar and you pick up an irresistible spark in how she tackles everything, moves amongst or even against things, weaves between issues and personalities, skimming over anyone and anything. By comparison people seem earthbound and forever trapped in protocol and expectation. But she – she is beyond keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, and has long ditched the what-would-others-think.

She no longer cares about the issues for the sake of the issue itself; nor is she bothered by the personality differences . Actually she rather enjoys the fact that someone is ‘other’ than herself and considers that a plus, not a minus. She likes figuring them out, like you would figure out Sudoku, or how to pull out a piece of Jenga without toppling the lot. People to her are but a mass of faces, emotions and yearnings: she recognizes herself in some of them, but also that she’s moved from them in most instances. Being stuck in moments is a rare occurrence now - but when they do come along she won’t be surprised or perturbed, and she won’t dwell there for long. As for protocol and keeping up an appearance – well, life’s just too short for that. Mind you, she would never break the bounds of socially accepted codes. But neither is she afraid of simply standing up in the middle of a meeting, ambling across the room with a slow reach for the door knob, then throwing back a half glance and that soft smile of hers, before walking out of something she really doesn’t want to kill off brain cells for.

It may be in the way she physically is. Gone are the days of careful arranging and rearranging herself so she appears just so. She is, now, just so. Limbs languidly stretched to where they are comfortable; a lacy bra strap peeking out from one shoulder, in a deep jewel colour that is a complete jar against her outer neutrals; sometimes an ankle loosely dangling a slip-on killer heel, and swaying to whatever tune was on her iPod. She can eat alone in public now, without hiding her face in her mobile pretending to text. She can take in the full span of the room and meet anyone’s gaze, probably out stare them with that air of “So?” She eats slowly, what she likes to eat, and in the wrong order if she preferred – sweet first, then the starter, perhaps tell them to pack up the entrée to take away when it eventually comes, because she got bored with waiting for it. Waiters melt at a woman like her, and she would smile her kind smile as though she was patting them on the head, like you would a cocker spaniel.

Even close friends won’t read much more into her than any stranger, all that searing loss and robbery in matters of her heart notwithstanding. But then she’s always been an artful mistress of disguises, so any piteousness was always submersed beneath perfect poise and a seeming audacity despite it all. So if you looked, armed with an insider’s knowledge of her life, you will still not find that small hard line across her full mouth, nor a hollow under her limpid lower lids. No it goes much deeper than that – the cracks will be well processed and stored in the recesses of a blade sharp mind, poised for quick retrieval and counter attack. But you wouldn’t even feel the blow until you see your own blood trickle down your conscience; it would have been thrusting, and clinically precise. As for any memory of depletion in her circumstances, these will be well guarded by ready words that can tumble and zing, that is, if she so chose to release them. A soft slap, is all you would ever know - but you would know.

No, to the world here is one cool chick, a woman of her own mind and comfortable in her skin. Is this what rubbing off rough corners do to you then, through the insults and injuries that lives and loves cast at you, you end up so silky smooth and unattainable, you slip through fingers like so much soft sand in the shallows of an aquamarine lagoon.