The most beautiful woman I have ever seen in person is JinHi. In the spring of 1998, I went to City Lights Theatre on Broughton Street in Savannah to audition for the annual "Shakespeare in the Park" production of Macbeth. I had just moved to Savannah (from Texas) with my first husband, Rickey, and we didn't know anyone yet.
We were meeting people and talking about important things like theatre and puppetry, when a woman began coming down the stairs from the green room to the lobby. She had long, wavy, shiny black hair that just kind of floated around her shoulders and down her back. Her skin was so clear and her cheeks looked like they must feel like rose petals. I swear she even had a little patter of freckles across her nose. She was just wearing jeans and a sweater, but her body was in such unbelievable shape, she could have made a garbage bag sexy.
As this gorgeous creature descended the stairs, I noticed that she walked with crutches. Because she only had one leg. Hey! She only has one leg! I didn't even fucking notice because I was in the middle of a love-at-first-sight-girl-crush! Holy shit I've been staring at her. Not only is she going to think I'm a lesbian, but she'll think I'm staring at her leg. Now she's coming right at me, smiling like an angel, introducing herself as JinHi and saying something about how she works at the theatre but I can't hear her because I have no idea if I've already made an idiot of myself without saying a single word.
Over the next couple of years, I got to see this happen to other people a lot. The reaction to her is almost always the same. At a restaurant, at the park, at the beach. She moves along with one leg and two crutches, with a gait like those landstrider things in The Dark Crystal. Her hair blows behind her and her mouth always has this Mona Lisa smile. She parts a crowd with the power of her beauty and I watch the play of thought on the faces of those she passes. It's odd enough to see someone with one leg, but her beauty is somehow even more rare. I watch people wrestle with being given so much sensory information at once. You want to stare at her, goddammit! But how rude is that?!
I've often wondered how she perceives this. Or if she even notices. See, the thing is, once you get to know her, you discover that her beauty and number of limbs are really the least interesting things about her. I just love that in a person.
Anyway, today is her birthday, and I was thinking about her. So I thought I'd write it down. Happy Birthday, JinHi!
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