We were at a (former) favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Arlington.  The only less-than-great gastric experience we ever had there was when I ordered the Red Bean Boba Tea:  expecting to suck up familiar fruity bubble tea, I was surprised when the large bright straw delivered red beans and strips of gelatin.  Otherwise, beautiful healthy meals and reasonable prices dazzled and delighted us!

The charm of this authentic hole-in-the-wall was broken by a chair with a loose seat: while scooting closer to the table, my dad’s left index finger was caught between seat and chair, and was smashed under the weight of his body!   Blood oozed from under and around his fingernail!

As the rest of us  looked on, horrified, we were overcome by shameful insane desperate empathetic hysterical laughter.  My dad groaned about the probable eventual detachment of his fingernail, and the inevitable pain of doing things – like playing the clarinet!  He has retired from his post as First Clarinet of the Fort Worth Symphony, though continues to teach, practice and perform a lot.  He grimaced as it dawned on him that he relies on the damaged finger to cover the  Ab hole on the clarinet.

The restaurant offered an apology, a different chair, a band-aid, and some burn ointment. They also offered to apply the band-aid for my dad, but he requested to soak his throbbing finger in ice water for a bit.

Later, while a confused server wandered around with our steamy-hot, much-anticipated food, my dad gingerly applied the burn ointment in hope of pain relief.  His effort was in vain: the burn ointment only served to render his paw un-band-aid-able: it was too slippery.

As we began to eat the food that would likely make right of some of what had gone so wrong,  I observed that my dad’s chair wasn’t the only seat in the restaurant in need of repair – many booths were patched up with bright blue duct tape.  None-the-less, on one booth, I spotted a hole large enough to engulf a baby!

A couple of bites into my delicious heap of fresh veggies and soft-and-sometimes-crunchy-wide noodles, I discovered a dreadful black hair lurking behind a succulent crispy carrot!  Beneath my repulsion and disappointment, pressure to be polite weighed me down.   I was locked down by a pattern from my teenage years – back when dinners were difficult because I didn’t want to eat any animal products or  unnecessary calories.  I felt 14 again -  unsure of what to do with strong negative emotions in a world full where cute little animals get eaten, and beautiful food is tainted by hair.  I didn’t want to cause a scene.  My mom said that she wasn’t sure what she would do if she was me, but she warned that the restaurant might do something gross to my food if I sent it back.   “A hair isn’t so bad…” she said, “considering what they COULD put in your food.  Perception is everything!  A hair really isn’t a big deal!!  Think of how much cat hair you’ve probably eaten at our house!!!”

I ruminated while she chimed, and poked around with my chopsticks.  I ventured to take a bite, but was interrupted by the sight of another hair!  I nearly put down my chopsticks, but then she said “It’s probably just a piece of the same strand of hair!  It ‘s all about perception. “

My dad said “Yeah, or maybe you only saw 2 and not the 4 pieces of hair that are  in there.  It’s a matter of perception!”  I laughed, but I wasn’t entirely sure what he was suggesting I do.  My mom said “Oh, 1 hair, 2 hairs,4 hairs…don’t think about it!  It’s all just perception.”

I worried about being The Princess Who Doesn’t Eat The Perfectly Good Food Right In Front of Her – especially in a recession! Not that anyone was even accusing me.  I really think my judgment was clouded: I felt traumatized by my dad’s purple bleeding finger.  As I looked at it, I contemplated how much unpleasantness I have tolerate to just get along.  I thought maybe I “should” just take the good with the bad…the veggies with the hair.

Simultaneously, I felt pressure to be tough enough to consume slightly foul food; I longed to be as feminine and particular as the Princess and the Pea; and I also felt self-conscious about how gross it is to eat hair-tainted food. I said to them, “If I do eat it, you can’t judge me!!”  They laughed and I was assured that it really was no big deal.

After I politely and bravely finished eating a large portion of this hair-tainted  food that was supposedly no grosser than everything else we ever eat, my mom quipped: “…of course, WE all would have sent it back, if there was hair in OUR food.  Pbbst…just kidding!”  They all laughed at her ‘zinger’ while I gaped, defeated.  However, it wasn’t long before my brother reached over to take a bite from the mound of soft crunchy noodles left on my plate.  I said “Aha! So you WOULD have eaten it!”  My mom said “Oh heck yeah he would!  Without a thought!”  And then it hit me!  All that worrying about what I “should” do, and I missed the obvious solution: I could have given my tainted “Vegetable Delight” to my Brother!  He would not care about the hair.  And I could have eaten the veggie spring roll leftover from the appetizer: thus negating any talk of ordering more, while maintaining decorum by participating in the meal.

We left the restaurant laughing and in good spirits, but I was thinking that maybe next time we could skip the restaurant to cozy up at my apartment for soup and a movie.   Trauma aside, I had fun with my family and I gleaned a valuable lesson.  Reinhold Niebuhr articulated the essence of what I learned perfectly in his “Serenity Prayer:”

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change; (like what happened to my dad’s finger)
courage to change the things I can; (like how I didn’t need to eat that hair tainted food)
and wisdom to know the difference.

“Wow. You are my role model. I have never crossed such an amazing woman. You’re session meant a lot to me. (Fort Worth Country Day School session.) I myself have been dealing with weight problems. I’m an aspiring actress and I was wondering if you have any tips or suggestions such as where I should audition. Please email me!”

Kenzie, thanks so much for your message! I am honored to be a role model for you.  Here are some thoughts on healthy living that helped me overcome a “weight problem.”

I encourage you to see your body as beautiful machine that works perfectly – there are no “problems.”  If you are storing unwanted weight, it’s because you are taking in more calories than your body is burning.  Work with your mom to make sure that you are eating plenty of fruit, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein.  Develop healthy eating habits, and you’ll avoid the “diet” insanity.   Rather than “nonfat” or “low-fat” processed food (which can leave you feeling unsure of whether you’re full), eat REAL food.  At first, choosing an apple instead of potato chips may be a very difficult choice to make, but if you get used to eating fresh healthy food, you’ll begin to crave what your body really needs, rather than what it’s addicted to.  Think of your body as a car – it needs proper fuel in order to function properly.  Find forms of exercise that you really enjoy, and make exercise a regular part of life.  Don’t judge your body compared to society’s silly standard; trust that your body is an amazing machine that is yours to take care  of and enjoy.

Now, about your question of where to audition. I don’t know of any specific place to suggest, except perhaps Kids Who Care – it’s kid-produced theater that makes a difference.  The best advice I ever got about acting is to consider it a blue collar job, rather than some glamorous, impossible fantasy.  If you want to act, Act.  You don’t have to worry about the odds of whether you’ll “make it” in Hollywood – you can produce theater on your own.  It’s a craft – work at getting good at the craft of acting, and you can find a way to do what you love for a living.

Don’t try to conform to the stereotypical actress in Hollywood – that’s a miserable way to go.  Take care of yourself so that you can reach your full potential.  Art should imitate life, and real people come in many shapes and sizes.  Focus on the Art of acting, not the Hollywood hype, and you can be in control of your life path.  I hope these ideas are helpful.  Let me know what you think.

Hi There,

This blog is an extension of True Beauty Workshops: a program I launched to  help girls realize their True Beauty and reach their full potential.  I am inspired by my role at the forefront of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty: in the summer of 2005, I was one of the Dove “real women” on billboards and in magazines who danced around in white underwear.  The ads featured six un-airbrushed “real” women, not professional models, celebrating our curvy bodies.  Major media buzz fueled Dove’s effort to challenge the current stereotype of beauty; we were featured on programs such as CNN, The Today Show and Oprah, to name a few.

I was “discovered” for the campaign one day while taking out the trash.  The opportunity to challenge societies’ current definition of beauty was not only a fabulous fairy tale of a chance to make a positive impact on American pop culture; but the message that beauty comes in many shapes and sizes was of huge personal significance.  I gleefully celebrated my short curvy body in the Dove ads, but I do know what it’s like to struggle with a negative body image.  Until a couple years prior to the Dove ads, I had waged a major war against my body – the campaign proved that my story is universal.  The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is based on a global survey which revealed that, in 2004, only 2% of women around the world considered themselves beautiful.  During the campaign, and since, I’ve met countless women with their own war stories and battle scars from “fighting a weight problem”.  In a fierce “battle of the bulge,” some women have simultaneously rebelled against societal pressure and punished themselves for falling short, through Compulsive Overeating or Anorexia (Seemingly opposite, the motives behind Compulsive Overeating and Anorexia are actually similar).  Some women express their insatiable hunger for approval through Bulimia and Compulsive Exercise.  However, many women don’t go to such extremes.  Many average women flirt with Eating Disorders throughout their lives, yo-yo diet, are preoccupied with diet and exercise and, or, allow insecurities to interfere with personal relationships.  Blessed with perspective from both ends of the body image spectrum, I hope to create awareness of how our individual  stories are part of the collective story of  womankind: our role in society is shifting.  Women have more power than ever before; true liberation will come when we make history of the battle with our bodies.

www.truebeautyworkshops.com