Dazzlingly Clever

" I read of a girl in a novel once who was divinely beautiful.  Have you ever imagined what it must be like to be divinely beautiful?  Oh, I have often.  Which would you rather be?  Divinely beautiful, or dazzlingly clever, or angelically good?"-Anne Shirley



Sometimes certain words form little burrows in the corners of my mind.

At times they are treasured and I go back to where I've hidden them to take them out and hold them in my hands, caressing the arc of the letters, smiling at my reflection mirrored in their love.
Other times they worm their way uncomfortably into dark corners and I'm never able to get them to budge.  They sting to the touch, they reek of disdain.  I close my eyes and hum a song and pretend I don't feel their toxic venom penetrating my skin.

Words have the culpability to incite both tears and smiles.
And lately I've been appreciating their strength.
Even to do both.

I think every woman wants to feel beautiful. 
We want to be perceived as beautiful. 
I don't know that all even want to truly be beautiful. 
They just want to be believed to be.
Beautiful.  To someone.  Anyone, really.

I told someone I'm getting to know how much it meant to me to be mentioned in a review last year for my role as Helena.  The writer said I dispelled the myth that a woman couldn't be both funny and beautiful.

"I think it meant a lot to me because those are things I aspire to be; to make people laugh and to be seen as lovely."
'Those are probably the first two words I would use to describe you. Funny and beautiful.'

It fit in this tiny crack along the hallways of haunting words within my mind, right in between the refrain The Most Beautiful Woman in the World and We Can Have Nothing to do with Each Other Ever Again.

It's peculiar which words lock hands with one another.

There's this part in Anne of Green Gables when Anne mulls over which words would dance most flatteringly in her minds eye. 
Beautiful.  Clever.  Good.
I'm beginning to notice that perhaps I don't even know which words taste delicious until the honey drips from my lips.

"You are such a Clever Woman."

My femininity swelled with pride.

Beautiful.
Open to see such a quality possessed me.
Good.
Courage to grow each day of my life moreso.
Clever.
Surely a minute few could boast 'twas true.

But today, one he, saw I was.

And I confidently danced in his minds hallways, tucked neatly between Amusement and Wonder.