Worlds collide

Sketch a day - Say 165/365

As I was eating my breakfast in the hotel in Liverpool this morning, there were a whole bunch of mum’s and children and teens eating theirs. They were excited. Many of the kids and teens (all girls) were dressed up in a kind of hyper theatrical way. Hair oiled back, massive hair pieces, glitter, sequins and leotards everywhere. Some mum's were putting the finishing touches to outfits. I am guessing that they were all there for some kind of beauty pageant for kids?

I did some quick sketches. The children looked so intense and focused. Some were only perhaps 7 or 8 but they had that performer poise already.

Occasionally the kids and mum's would look at me and I could see them trying to work out why I would choose to look like me, just as I was wondering why they would choose to go through all of this rigmarole.

I’m not gunna lie, there is part of me that wonders about the ethics of dressing kids up in hyper sexualised outfits. All the stuff about inculcating impossible beauty norms, blah blah blah, passed through my head.

But later, it struck me that while those thoughts are not irrelevant or unjustified, nonetheless there was joy in that room. And a sense of expectation. And the ose kids were having fun. And those mum's had community. Some of the older girls sachyed backwards and forwards in and out of the dining area, in that way teens do when they feel like they are getting to be someone. That they sense that here, for a moment they are not overlooked. That they matter. It's a kind of mix of performance and self consciousness and sass.

There was a ton of stuff to love in this moment. Along with my discomfort. And later, I have been thinking, how much of my discomfort in this moment was coming from feeling of judgment and also fear (of not being the kind of woman they might think was ok)?

I dunno. But it's a breakfast I won't forget quickly.

And it made me think about all of us, bobbling about, trying to be understood, hoping we are lovable, hoping we will be accepted.

I suspect we all need more breakfasts with colliding worlds within them.

That's the news.