Wisdom from The Face-Painting Booth

Today we ventured off to not one, but TWO nearby fairs.  The first was complete with acres of prize livestock and fried EVERYTHING, the second a more quaint affair geared toward children with a few booths and bounce houses.  I have always loved and always will love a good, down-home, dirty state fair, despite the questionable bathrooms and UNIQUE attendees.  But the set-up crew could have been a little more considerate of the pigs by not parking them 10 feet from the chocolate-dipped bacon stand.  That image and the fattened, white-feathered turkeys running behind a remote-control monster truck made me seriously consider a vegan lifestyle...then it was lunch time and they had a deal on foot-long corn dogs.

The first state-fair event was a little too much stimulation for my four-year old, but she absolutely loved the local fair.  She happily walked up to each child, as she always does, and said, "Oh hi, you wanna come to my house?"  And she bounced with determined glee for TWO hours.  I convinced her to take a break to get her face painted.  She confidently asked for a sparkly butterfly and pointed to the top of her left cheek. 

The owner of the booth was a dark haired women with a dozen bright colored feathers and jewels hanging from her hair pined up messily with loose strands waving every direction.  She and her fiancé traveled to various farmers markets and parties with their face painting, feather extension, henna business.  She gave me a card and I asked the origin of her first name.  "Indian..Hindi and Sanskrit," She said.  "Oh fantastic!" I said.  "Do you have Indian heritage?" I asked.  "No, I don't have ancestors from India, but I am part Native American, Cherokee, actually, what is your heritage?" She asked.  "Um...some Swiss, Swedish, I think some Scottish...yeah I'm just regular white, I'm just a regular white lady."  She put her brush and paints down and looked me square in the face, "You are not regular, don't say that.  You are a very nice person and you are very pretty, I hope someone else has told you that today."   I was speechless for a few moments, and said, "Thank You."  The determination in her eyes said, "How dare you say you are something less than you are." I thought of my daughter and how I would want her to see herself as the treasure that she is yet here I was self loathing.  Wisdom comes from the strangest places and I'm glad my ears and eyes were open to catch it this time. I walked away a little humbled knowing that I need to give myself a little more credit, because I am different, I am me, and gosh darn it, people like me!