In memorium, with gratitude

Legendary pinup model Bettie Page has passed away after recently suffering a stroke. I still remember the day I discovered the Grand Dame of pinup modeling (and fetish modeling, too, but that's another thing for another time...). Up until then I was convinced - like many girls of a certain age just discovering the conventions and trappings of "glamour" in the contemporanious sense - that Marilyn Monroe was the end all and be all. At the same time, I'd secretly been an admirer of Mae West, because none of my friends at that age had any clue who she was (they were a boring lot and I eventually lost interest in them), as well as jazz-era stars Clara Bow and Louise Brooks, so I had already formed opinions and ideals to a certain extent "just be be different". There were few contemporary mainstream models or actresses who fascinated me as much as those three, with the exception of Winona Ryder, whose movies I watched almost religiously and whose hairstyle I copied after graduating high school. (I also briefly copied Bettie's style during a certain phase in my early 20s...note I say briefly)
Discovering Bettie in my late teens caused me to reevaluate the reasons behind who and what I chose to emulate , and changed the course of how I viewed "alternative" lifestyles and sexuality (also another topic for another time). In images of Bettie I saw someone who was genuinely open and obviously content with just being in the moment, and I envied that. As a teenager, I always felt closed off and not quite in synch with what went on around me. I usually did my best to maintain a certain level of detatchment, and as a result, I often felt isolated and didn't have as much fun as other people around me. I was almost always in a constant state of doing everything I could to avoid being embarassed and to avoid feeling uncomfortable...in short, to avoid being noticed at all. But living with your guard up at all times is no way to go through life, and I was feeling old beyond my years by living in fear of other people's opinions. It was also making me a cynical and judgemental person in return, which made me no fun to be around.
Around the time that I started to discover Bettie Page I began to realize that I was missing out on a lot of experiences and opportunities by being so aloof. In Bettie I saw someone whose image basically said "Here I am. Just me, being myself. Take it or leave it, but by choosing leave it you might be missing out on some seriously fun times". I began to endeavor to lighten up, and over time I was able to become, to a degree, a more easy going and more open person in general. I still have my moments, and there are times when I'm stressed when all I want to do is be cynical and detatched (and be left alone entirely, shunning human contact). But overall I've become a more fun loving and playful person as an adult than I ever was as a kid. I'm okay with being goofy and being involved in things that could lead to embarassment. For example - a couple weeks ago at Johnny Rockets with my mom and my youngest sister I had a root beer pull a Mt. Vesuvius on me and explode when I accidentally put a straw with vanilla shake on it in my soda. The old me would have been humiliated and been pretty upset, but no strangers pointed and laughed or threw their fries at me to express their derision at my stupidity and lap full of soda so I just laughed at myself over the dumb thing I did. It was funny.
Icons like Bettie are a lot of different things to different people. For me, she was a window into a future of feeling more free to just be myself, whoever that ended up being. For others she's just a sex symbol. Bettie herself wasn't much for all of the hoopla surrounding her infamy, and in her later years shied away from publicity and attention. I can respect that. But to generations of Americans her image will continue to evoke a sense of something either lost (innocence) or gained (liberation), and so she's not entirely gone.