Beauty is a soul thing

I have a black-and-white picture of my mother taken when she was about 20. She is wearing a mini-skirt, her mop of jet-black afro hair has a natural luster and her full African lips would leave men gasping! But it is the spark in her eyes; the beauty flowing through them from the inside our that always leaves me exclaiming: "Aah, what a beauty!" Even when life has been grossly unfair to my mother most of her adult life, she retains the irresistible radiance that comes from knowing who you are.

 Recently I asked my mother what the secret of lasting beauty is. She said, "Doing nothing to the beauty you come with from your mother's womb." When I told her that is an old-fashioned secret that has since lost its relevance, she looked me in the eye like a philosopher and said, "That is why today's world has lost it." 

I am not sure I deciphered but I believe the secret is not in the cosmetic substances with the typical Ugandan woman enhances her beauty. Some women almost crucified me when one of my Facebook posts told them that wigs are scary to most men. But truly, beauty does not come from trying too hard. Beauty is embedded in identity; in accepting and appreciating what psychologists call "individual personality"; that natural uniqueness that separates you from the rest.

But when a woman watches an American movie featuring Beyonce and decides her beauty is what she wants, something is bound to go wrong. Duplication will bring depreciation because no man wants a superficial woman. Imitation becomes a limitation because you will never give that original beauty in you a chance to shine. Thus  beauty is a soul thing that cannot be purchased from a beauty parlour.