Anika Green

[foxeia]

[serendipitih]

[phersian-deactivated20180214]

phersian | queens network | lazy angels network 

[serendipitih]

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” - Saint Augustine of Hippo

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phersian | queens network | lazy angels network 

[makeuphall]

[stylishblogger]

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phersian | queens network | lazy angels network 

[canadoh]

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phersian | queens network | lazy angels network 

[breadandolives]

[sweet-cider]

[cozytreehouse]

[triflingthing]

🍂 ☕ 🌆 

[inspiremyaesthetic]

good morning <3

[triflingthing]

Autumn in the Distillery District of Toronto 🍂

[halloweenmagick]

[peacefulautumnleaves]

Loving this fall weather right now <3

[anikaagreen-blog]

What is Beauty?

Beauty is confidence. Beauty is being shot down over and over and continuing to push yourself back up. Beauty is loving yourself for who you are on the inside, and refusing to let yourself be designed by other people’s opinions or your outward appearance. Beauty is struggling for years, feeling like you can’t be yourself, trapped in a place that never wanted you, and then emerging from that chrysalis and leaving behind pain and despair, choosing to be happy. That is beauty.

 Makeup is not beauty. Makeup is art. Paintings on skin, sculptures of latex and tissue paper, layered on an arm or a cheek. Makeup is bravery and freedom. It is not supposed to be fear, pump after pump of full-coverage product hastily slapped across your new zit. It is not a mask to conceal the mountains and valleys of your face. It is art. You are beauty.

 Fashion is not beauty. Fashion is expression, a freedom exclusive to those of us fortunate enough to be born in the right place at the right now. Fashion is not having a designer bag or the perfect jeans, it is not being a size two or a size four or a size twenty-four. Fashion is the fifteen dollar shirt from H&M that makes you feel brave. Fashion is the leather jacket from the thrift store that holds hidden secrets from its previous life. Fashion is how you choose to show yourself to everyone around you. The six-pack and double-D cup of a supermodel is not beauty. The way that she gives herself completely to her children, loving them and protecting them at all costs - that is beauty.

  Magazines are not beauty. Reality television is not beauty. Your instagram feed is not beauty. Those are things, shaped to perfection through hours of meticulous filters and editing. They do not define you. They are not “goals”. They should not be wildest dreams. Posing in clothes someone else has picked out, in makeup someone has applied, is not beauty. Rise up, do not accept the standard that the world has pushed on you. Don’t allow other people to set the bar for what is beautiful in a world that is constantly changing. Most importantly, do not let people tell you that your generation is stupid or selfish or ignorant of reality. We did not create this world. They did. We are living in it, and we will fight it every day.

[anikaagreen-blog]

All the world’s a stage

and all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts...

The whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school.

And then the lover, 

Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.

Then a soldier, 

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth.

And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part.

Then, he shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacle on nose and pouch on side; 

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, 

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history, 

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Please watch:

https://vimeo.com/221127553

[adapted from William Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’]

[anikaagreen-blog]

As far back as I can remember, I have been small. Short, skinny, just “skin and bones”, as people often liked to remind me. When I was younger, I liked being small. It meant that when I jumped off the stairs on my way down for breakfast, my dad would still catch me. Everyone thought I was cute and wanted to pick me up and cuddle me, and I lived for the attention.

 I was homeschooled until Grade 6, so growing up, I never compared my looks with anyone else or considered any major differences between my body and anyone else’s. I was a kid, and my days were spent playing hide-and-seek or dress-up and doing history lessons over lunch. But time passed, and eventually there was a significant shift.

 I noticed it first around ten. I was going through my “Save-the-Pandas” phase, and had been rattling off facts and statistics in a speech to my grandparents; a desperate attempt to bring in donations to the World Wildlife Fund. When I was finished, I expected applause, or at least some surprise. I had worked very hard writing my speech and memorizing all the facts and statistics. But instead, my grandpa began to laugh, telling me I was too small and young to know what I was talking about. On my thirteenth birthday, I stopped by a beauty supply store on my way home from school. I wanted to get face masks for my friends and I to use at my spa-themed birthday party. I was in a hurry, so when I spotted an employee, I quickly told her what I wanted. She smiled a most condescending smile, patted me on the head, and told me “Face masks are for older girls. Come back in a few years sweetie.” Later that year, a woman in a hotel pool told me I looked just like her six-year-old daughter, and that the two of us would be great friends, because we must be about the same age.

 I have always been small, and skinny, and looked young. But that feeling of dread, anger and fear that I would never be taken seriously grabbed hold of me and refused to let go.

As I got into high school, the comments I dealt with had less to do with age and more about mental health. I was asked regularly if I was anorexic, or if I even ate. People would come up to me and say that I needed to eat a burger.  Around this time, body positive campaigns were becoming more and more popular and common, but the one thing I failed to see in all of them was my own body type. Campaigns boasted slogans like “Love your curves”, “Real Women have Curves”, or “Real Beauty”, followed by pictures of plus-size women, all with the same body type.

 The lack of acknowledgement and representation of more than one body type is a contrast of everything these campaigns claim to stand for. I understand that we live in a culture where thin body types are generally considered more attractive, and that those who do not have those lack representation from almost everywhere. But when a campaign explicitly says “real beauty” or “real women” , it should include more than just one body type, because we live in a world where there are many. These campaigns also exclude the male gender entirely, failing to acknowledge that they also live in a world that promotes one body type as more attractive over others.

   We need to stand together as a population and stop focusing on what people look like. Instead of telling someone “You’re not fat, you’re beautiful,” - implying that the two are opposites, tell them what an amazing heart they have, or how funny they are. At the end of the day, there is always going to be many different body types, and many different opinions, but we should lover ourselves and each other and focus on what really matters.