Oh, you dance, dance like how?

Four years ago, I met a girl in the mountains in a small, wooden cafe. She had set her aviators on the table in front of her, and a distressed leather jacket was slung over the chair behind her. Around her neck hung a very large camera, and her body was framed by a perfect gray linen dress. It showed her figure just slightly as she swayed towards the counter to pick up her tea. Elle was tall and athletic, with long wavy blond hair and gleeful, clear blue eyes. She was marked by something tragic, something I was sure she didn't bring upon herself-- an injustice that life had ordained for her. It was a symbol of her quiet strength, a posture she wore with elegance. When she smiled, it was as if the whole world was a better place.

However, what defined her was not the cafe (it smelled like wet pine and ground coffee), nor the smooth, worn table we sat at, nor the way she inclined her head when she listened. It was in the words that came out of her mouth. Her words, her mind said to you that she was like the light. She was someone that the world and circumstance couldn't mar. She was pure and artful. Elle radiated goodness. 

I'm sure you've met her too. 

I spent a good portion of my life trying to be that girl. Her blitheness is attractive-- these women are apparently never without. But somewhere on the course of the past several years, I discovered that no matter how hard I try, I will never be one of these unmarred nymphs. In fact, I am broken. Sure, there are minutes when I feel graceful and exemplary, but there are many, many more when I am falling flat on my face. In fact, all of the women that I know and find beautiful are a little misshapen by life, full of past fortunes and past regrets, gorgeous alloys of truth and aspiration.

I was in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago, having drinks with a friend (called W) and recounting a hilarious tale of my woes regarding men. Some of the dating blunders I have made are unbelievable. After laughing heartily over my failures, W paused for a moment and called me a "beautiful disaster." I graduated from law school and never took the bar. I made films I've never watched. I've written two-thirds of a novel. I have seen a thousand flowers fail to bloom. But I will always own to my actions, and try to run farther and try to do better the next time around. I wasn't sure how to take W's attribution then, but I do now: it is the truth, and so I embrace it. I am a beautiful disaster.

I have concluded that to be able to venture out, to get it wrong or right, to move to action and to give is to be brave. There is strength in our courage to be weak, to live in our pains and follies. Our broken shards point both to our humanity and something other within. So I get it wrong all the time; I'm always a mess, my "dress [is] hanging off my shoulder, barely sober." I'm always "making plans and starting over" and always always dancing through disaster; but in the bruises and scars of my aging skin, I see healing and something beautiful growing in the stead of all my mistakes. I'm growing to find a definition of beauty that is irresistible.

(And yes, I quoted a sad Drake song. I'm that girl.)