The eye of the beholder

This weekend, I left the relative safety of Marin and entered into the "Twilight Zone," well, the episode in which a woman goes into cosmetic surgery for the 11th time to become "beautiful." When her face bandages are unwrapped, she is — to us, but not the world she lives in, a world of pig-faced people.

That brilliant episode was called “The Eye of the Beholder," and I was face to face with what beauty is — and isn't — and the very personal truth of that title this weekend.

I was, of all interesting places to be, at the Tattoo Body Art Expo at the Cow Palace ("No hassles, no weapons" is how it's promoted. I'm down with that!) My friend Richard dragged me there — we both are intrigued by tats, he slightly more than I, and piercings, me slightly more than he, and the culture around them.

Tattoos, in case you haven't noticed, are no longer the domain of sailors and women of "ill repute," whatever that is. Teens have them, celebs have them, Starbucks baristas have them — even Marin soccer moms have them (as well as pierced belly buttons and nether regions, too).

And then ... and then there were the people at the Tattoo Expo. I'll be honest — for the majority of them, their tats aren't some rebellious grasping onto a fast-fading youth as you hit 40 or a teenage rite-of-passage. It's serious. It's a lifestyle and, thus, has its own standards of beauty.

And some of it truly is beautiful. The artistry of tattoos can be amazing. But — and this is a big but — not all. Certainly not the tribal patterns that covered a man's entire head and most of his face, and especially not the big tattoos of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow on one man's leg and another man's chest — no matter how much you think the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies were the best things you've ever seen and you idolize Depp or Sparrow or what they stand for. Sorry. I like the roses and hearts and Japanese koi and Maori-like armband tats but ...

And I'm not even going to get into the whole body modification thing, with ears so heavy and stretched out with metal that they drop like Dumbo's and horns (!!!) implanted into foreheads — please tell me, where in the world do you work when you look like that?

But that is my version of beauty, not theirs.

One of the most unsettling things I observed, though, was how so many of the people there were really heavy. Some, just plain obese. I don't want to sound politically incorrect, but I found a certain irony in spending hundreds — thousands? — of dollars to adorn a body in fanciful colors and patterns — a walking artwork, actually — when the "canvas" itself isn't shown the same care, love and respect. Again, my version of beauty.

Beauty is, of course, something every fortysomething woman struggles with. We see the crows nest, the laugh lines, the sagging and spotting that comes with our age, and many of us run right to cosmetic surgeons to book our Botox, nip-and-tuck and collagen appointments while the rest of us slather on Vitamin C creams, Retinol and serums that we hope will slow life's ravages down while we rev up our spinning classes.

What is beauty? I know we don't all agree on what it looks like, but I would hope, on a personal level, it's looking at ourselves in the mirror and — wrinkled, heavy, tattooed, pierced, Botoxed or not — saying, "Yeah, I like that. I look and feel beautiful."

What is beauty for you?
Do you look in the mirror and see beauty?
And, honestly — Jack Sparrow???