Self-Portrait

In a personal growth workshop at age forty I was given drawing paper and crayons to help me
experience my feelings. Black. Tears welled in my eyes as I drew my eyes, nose, mouth and
hair. The more I allowed myself to feel my ugliness the harder I pressed the crayon on to the
paper. Tense, tight, mesmerized, my fingers throbbed under the pressure as I used the
blackness to obliterate my face.

With unrelenting tears streaming down my face I put the crayon down and stared in stone
silence at my picture. Others left for lunch while I mopped my nose and blinked hard so I
could see between the tears. We were to write a number on our picture between 1 and 10 to
represent how strongly we experienced the feeling we discovered. When I could finally move
again I picked up the crayon and wrote: 29

My mother was impatient. She yelled and was e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y critical. I can't remember her
saying anything she liked about me. I heard her say my older sister is beautiful and that my
little sisters are cute. She told me I looked like a boy. At age fifty-three I was looking at
a picture of myself with my two girlfriends. I was stunned at what I saw. Three beautiful
women.