beauty

As I pull up to the intersection my eyes go to the lady decked out in yellow. Yellow rain coat, yellow rain pants, yellow construction helmet. Red stop sign. She appears older than she probably is because her skin is weathered. Her hair is damaged from a few bad dye jobs and it is pulled back into a ponytail with an ugly black scrunchy. Who thought of the scrunchy anyway? I am drawn to her because she is drawn to the strikingly beautiful woman walking across the street in front of her. This woman is perfectly put together and she is not wearing a stitch of yellow. Beautiful black leather boots, dark wash jeans, wool pea coat and a lovely scarf draped perfectly. Her umbrella poised above her pretty hair. The lady in yellow watches this other woman for a fleeting moment. As she watches, her hands reach up to the collar of her rain coat and I see her straighten the fleece jacket she has underneath the slicker so the collars of both coats are aligned. It is her one attempt at beauty. Underneath all of that rubberized clothing she is still a woman and she still wants to be beautiful. Even while standing on a street corner in the pouring rain flipping a sign from stop to slow she longs to be beautiful. And she is beautiful to someone even if she doesn't meet the "criteria" for beauty. She is beautiful simply because she is and there is beauty in everyone.