Birks on the Treadmill

So after that last post about Southern women I went to the gym and, while gasping for breath on a treadmill enveloped by the perfume cloud of the woman next to me (at least, that's how I've decided to explain the gasping), I saw a woman several machines over, walking slowly while reading a book. If I thought I wasn't fitting in here, she was bucking the local trend in a huge way. She was a middle-aged lady with long gray braided hair and thick-framed plastic glasses, wearing a purple and green tie dye t-shirt, faded pink cotton pants with the knees blown out, Birkenstocks with multi-colored yarn socks, and ear cuffs on each ear. As I looked at her I thought -- now there is a woman who knows who she is, and doesn't care what other people think. A woman who probably does what feels right, rather than what looks good. Someone full of spirituality, wisdom, and acceptance, who looks beyond the superficial to what really matters. Surely not someone who wastes time and energy fretting over her place in the herd. Perhaps the kind of woman I should aspire to become.

Pondering this, I looked again and also thought -- there is a woman who lives with several large dogs and lets them lick her on the lips.