Skip to main content

Sun Baking

She lay on the chaise lounge face down on the deck of the pool, a few feet from the edge of the water. It was mid-day and the sun bore down on her intensely, baking her skin into a light golden bronze. Casually, she slid her spaghetti strap down her left shoulder to the side of her bikini bra. She didn’t want a tan line there. She wanted her upper body nice and even.

Not too far away, a dark-skinned woman looked out the window of the clubhouse overlooking the resort’s lazy river pool and noticed the middle-aged woman baking in the sun. The dark-skinned lady thought about how she would love to catch a few sun rays herself, since it was good for her body in it’s conversion of Vitamin D.

But, she didn’t understand the point of sun bathing to the point of obsession. She recalled back one time while in Acapulco, while relaxing out by the pool with a good book in hand, noticing an elderly gentleman laying out next to her, covered in what looked like lesions of melanoma.

Of course, her dark skin gave her the protection to lay out a few hours longer than lighter skinned folks before she would ever have to worry about sun damage.

She loved her dark-reddish brown complexion. She thought what the Lord gave her was beautiful. She also loved the natural color of her lighter-skinned friends and family members. But she realized as she watched the lady below roast her skin into something deadly, was that everyone these days seem to think that the grass is always greener on the other side.

Fairer skinned people sometimes long to be darker, and darker skinned people sometimes long to be lighter. She thought of all those young girls in Africa investing in jars of skin cream to make their complexions a shade different so that they would think that they know beauty.

Or even yet, of all those young girls with curly or kinky hair who have yet to embrace their crown of glory in their nature texture, because they have hidden it away under the guise of straightners, relaxers, wigs and weaves.

The dark-skinned woman in the clubhouse wondered when people would wake up and realize that just being Human was beautiful in itself. Naturally. No alterations necessary. When will people wake up and just be. The dark-skinned woman took one last look out the window and turned to walk away, but not before first muttering to her self;

“I need to lose weight. Maybe today I’ll start my diet?”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Could Roanoke Island be my Melungeon Connection?

Melungeon: A member of a people mixed with White, Black,and American Indian ancestry living in the southern Appalachians. -Dictionary.com I recently returned from a short stay in the Outer Banks, which is a perfect family vacation destination on a group of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina. There you can find kite flying on huge sand dunes, and hours of fun windsurfing in the Atlantic Ocean. Those interested in aviation will find the birthplace of flight exciting at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in honor of Wilbur and Orville Wright. And if you really love history, you have... Roanoke Island. I stayed in Kill Devil Hills, NC in the Outer Banks, but of course the highlight for me, was my day trip down to Roanoke. I toured Roanoke Island Festive Park , an interactive family attraction that takes you back in time with a recreation of one of North America’s first settlements and a replica of a 16th century ship that made its way to the Outer Banks. It was in...

The Murder of My Neighbor

What if all of this (life) is just a test and right now half of us are passing and half of us are failing. The purpose of this test would be for the entire human race to get past superficial things like skin color and religion. When those of us pass we get to move on to the next level of spiritual enlightenment when we die, but when those of us fail we are doomed to this crisis existence on earth all over again, until one day it’s too late, and the promised one returns only for those ready for the next step of this journey. Regardless if I’m looking toward Buddhism or Jesus Christ, the essence of death boggles my mind. I have no idea what happens next and so at night I often imagine where our souls go once they’ve departed. In actuality I hate death, and yet I know it comes for me, it comes for us all. In preparation for the unknown, I try to live a clean life, and I try to do no harm. What does the Bible say, love thy neighbor? I want to practice that. Thou Shall Not Kill. My neighb...

I’m Not Doing It Anymore

All my life, I’ve been categorized as a minority and many times I’ve been asked to speak up on the behalf of all other minorities. Growing up, I was one of three Black girls at St. Mary’s Catholic School, where in the fourth grade the teacher singled me out when Michael Jackson’s hair caught on fire, to ask me to explain to the kids in the class, why Black people put grease in their hair. In high school, I remember accepting a ride from a co-worker, who before she dropped me off at home one evening after work, had fifty million and one questions regarding why Blacks do this and why Blacks do that, and if we get tanned by the sun or blush when embarrassed (to my dismay, my medium brown cheeks turn red all the time when I encounter a guy that I find attractive, more so now in my late thirties than ever before). In my current office environment, my office mate has bombarded me over and over with questions regarding the N-word and the hypocrisy of it. In addition, during our first year wor...