Within: in one’s inner thought, disposition, or character; an inner place or area; being inside

Beauty: the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts mind or spirit.

“Within” and “Beauty” have often been used in the same sentence, and it is usually implied that beauty comes from within. It is physical beauty that may catch our eye, but it is the beauty we find inside one another that captures our hearts. Perhaps one can refer to an “eternal beauty”, one that doesn’t fade with time, but expands with experience, knowledge, and humility.

Have you ever met a person for the first time and came to realize how attractive and magnetic this person was only after they had left your presence? One may call it charisma, personality, or character, but one immutable truth is that all of these qualities come from within.

When I first asked Nathalie to pose for a painting, it was a surprise to hear her response. Her? Of all the beautiful women running around the south of France? Why would I ask her? This is what made Nathalie such a perfect subject; she had a preserved innocence. It was her physical beauty that initially drew me to her, but it wasn’t until we shared a glass of wine in a café that I knew she would deliver such a memorable image. I think it can be safely said that people who posses physical beauty, but are not entirely aware of their image, or at least not driven by its self-centeredness, are some of the most endearing people we meet. Nathalie was no exception.

I could describe to you the flicker of candlelight that played across her beautiful face, and how the light hung like a lantern in the canopy of her long, blond hair. I could describe to you her petite frame that held her as delicate as the heavens hold the stars; but it was her words, the meaning behind those words, and the way here eyes delivered them. She sold her words at their highest price, and in turn they paid her tribute. It was of no great surprise when she spoke of her hopes of adding a fifth, fluent language to her répertoire. She was driven by accomplishment, acted on intelligence, and was lead by her strong beliefs. There was a commitment to a life-long education, and the world would repay her gladly.

As we sat there, and I listened, she would occasionally catch herself in a flash of self-awareness, and for a brief moment her eyes would betray her. I could see her retreat ever so slightly and she would take a small sip of wine, remembering she was sitting in a café with a man she had only just met.

“J’aimerais t’inviter à diner ce soir.” I remember telling her. It was then we had our first meal together and the many dinners that were to follow.

I had taken a few preliminary pictures of Nathalie in a park before using the vineyard as a backdrop. Her first response to the pictures was they didn’t look anything like her. It made me think of how one hears their own-recorded voice and they have to question if that is really how they sound. Nathalie was a natural in front of the camera, and I found it curious she had never considered ever becoming a model. It was just another beautiful trait she had managed not to lose along the way. I truly admired her sense of modesty, as well as her ability to give me a good cursing in a language I could never understand.

Today was going to be the day I would click the image for “Within”. It was not yet officially the summer of 1994, but the natural world doesn’t always wait for the call from our calendars. The morning sun had a slow, warm climb over the hills and gave its own forecast for the day: 85 degrees, light winds, and not a cloud to throw a shadow on the wealth of color and beauty in the south of France. Of course, I had my own interpretation of what the sun was telling me: if you have a young, beautiful girl and you’re an artist, it’s a damn good day to take her out in the vineyards, get her undressed, and steal a little of her soul for a later date.

A friend of mine had rented a car for the week, and seeing he normally slept in nursing a Saturday night in Aix-en-Provence, I had the wheels to drive Nathalie and I out to a distant vineyard. To pose nude in France is not unexpected or even frowned upon, but for Nathalie, I wanted a sanctuary for her. We had to be alone. No one is as beautiful and natural as when they believe no one is looking, and I would like to believe the only exception to that rule is the sole presence of a boyfriend.

There is a beautiful winding road that leads outside of Aix to the picturesque Mont Sainte-Victoire. It is a road that bends through great pines and valleys offering fantastic glimpses of vast, green fields, rows of vineyards, and a house or two. It was nearly high noon and the sun was confident in convincing our skin of its time to change. Nathalie rode quietly next to me, holding an assortment of clothes in her lap. There was a collection of bright, colorful blouses, a Spanish skirt with a rich, dancing motif, and a single hair tie that balanced on top. It was an ambitious selection, although we both knew only the hair tie would be used, and its sole purpose would be something I would wear as a lucky bracelet.

We followed a long turn in the road until it revealed a large, mature vineyard that threw a great pattern of green belts across an entire hillside. This would be the place. A vineyard for two. The trunks of the vines were heavy and thick with dark twisting limbs and they yielded perfect leaves that hung large and still. We could have been on another planet while we stood and prepared among the countless rows of the vineyard.

I knew the pose that I wanted. It was an image that had illuminated the cellars of my mind and had repeatedly visited me since our first encounter. I took a few warm-up shots to get her ready. I then asked if she would hold herself while I took a straight shot directly in front of her. Nathalie quietly brought herself together, looked into my lens, and waited. I also waited. I knew that with every slow blink of her eyes there would be a gradual dropping of her guard. I only had to wait.

Then it came, quietly from the south. A breath of warm wind lifted and whispered her last secret through the leaves and everything came from within.

Simon P. Côté - 2003

The beautiful spiral of white cloud played across the television weather channel as if it simply existed for entertainment value. The slow but determined decent from the north looked harmless enough, but the great belly of this storm boasted and threatened the southern Pacific Coast with promises of strong winds and rain.

Troy sat alone and motionless in his living room, dipped in a chair that had long consumed him. He wore a suit and tie, but no shoes. He watched with indifference as the approaching storm twisted its way across the earth, only slightly amused by the fact he sat a mere two feet off the ground and viewed the storm from an eye in the sky more than twenty-two thousand feet above.

Today was a rare day for Troy, especially in his newly self-appointed position. A ten second phone call was all it took to alter his daily routine for the past ten years. “I quit,” were his words of choice. He had only previously spoken these words as a passing fancy, provoked by the usual occasions; the cry from an alarm clock, a dense crawl in traffic, the knowledge that work will never be done, because there is always more. There were two ways he could personally view the approaching storm. It could be either a cleansing of life’s past or an ominous sign telling him the worse was yet to come.

Troy was an admired man for his wealth of character, if nothing else. He held a genuine sincerity toward society and his generosity never sought any kind of repayment. He was a hard working and honest man who could be said to only lie in shades of white. He took great pride in his own self-reliance, considered himself a moral man, and to pity him would upset him greatly. Of course he would quickly deny the above allegations, reverting to his inherent nature of modesty, and although he had never acquired a comfort in compliments, he secretly collected them for future motivational playbacks when life held him by the strings. He wore his armor proudly, but every soldier is made of flesh and bone.

He believed solely in Heaven, for a Hell could never exist in a world created by God. Good and Evil were formed by individual decisions and therefore they existed. His personal quest was to live the good, change the bad, and offer the world more solutions than problems. There were two great lessons in Troy’s life. Two wives, two deaths, too soon. The first involved the dreadful complexities of cancer, and the second was the arbitrary selection of accident. From the first he learned the great value of life, and the second he learned to fear life and its disregard for love. He was a man split in two, a mind forced into magnets of opposing powers.

The storm was predicted to hit the coast within a few hours and he decided he would take a front row seat at the edge of the sea to watch its arrival. Along the southern coast stretched a great length of railroad track that meandered like an endless python carrying a pattern of metal and wood. It was nearly mid-morning when Troy found himself standing just a few feet away from a passing train. The clatter of wheel and track resonated around him and he could feel the pull of wind from the train. In the blur of a passenger car was a little boy, no more then four, who meet his eyes and caught a quick glimpse of the flask he carried. It was the innocence of youth fleeing on a speeding train, and Troy felt the shame, even though the boy had probably not even known what he had seen.

Troy sat at the edge of the sea and felt the sand shift and welcome his weight. A large flock of seagulls took flight and he watched them disappear into the fog. The sky held no meaning. It was a sheet of flat white that hung like a blank canvas, quiet and still, waiting for color and value to express itself. It was the quiet before the storm. The stillness that alerts us of some great future change. It’s the undeniable, neurotic experience of expectation, anxiety, and preparation. It was Troy’s

The waves are always the first to tell of any impending storms. This late afternoon the surf rushed up the beach to carve out a cliff of sand just under Troy’s feet. He didn’t have to wait long. The brush of God began to work on the sky above and the scene was set quickly before him. First, almost imperceptibly, a dark cloud made a sudden appearance and was rapidly pushed over his head. The wind rose at once and began humming unintelligibly in his ears. He watched the rain come in like an enormous moving shower head that first textured the sea and then hastily dimpled the sand.

Troy’s mind raced and swam in its own sea of whiskey and lessons learned. “Lessons learned”, he whispered before knocking back another drink. If there are not lessons to be learned, he thought, then we must live in a world of arbitration, free of responsibility. “Who would care?” he whispered. “Who would be responsible?” Another drink of whiskey was sent down and fired a little oven in the pit of his stomach. “It would not be me.” He answered. “Not me.”

The rain satiated his suit and the drops ran down him in whole, clear pearls. He sat rigid with eyes imprisoned by the faint horizon line that kept the sky and sea from bleeding into one. Behind him was a moment that could have been the proof of miracles. A small crack in the heavens unlocked and hurled down a section of rainbow that struck and impaled the earth with a light that defied mortality. It was a light of hope and faith, and a sight to rekindle the belief in tomorrow. It was a sight that Troy had not turned in time to see. The great bar of light vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The wind grew in strength, refastened the heavens, and unleashed a downpour of rain onto Troy. He stood in defiance to the great storm, pitched his empty flask into the sea, and turned up toward the railroad tracks.

Running along the tracks was a massive cliff adorned by mature oaks and brave pines. One pine grew directly out of its side, high over the rails, and provided Troy with a little refuge from the rain. Troy laid himself down across the railroad tracks. He rested the back of his head and neck on one of the steel rails and propped his legs up and over the other. He found himself to be surprisingly comfortable across the wood and steel that would soon become his fate. It would be quick and it would be done in comfort. For a fleeting moment he thought himself silly and nearly removed himself, but the alcohol denied him any rational thought and kept him lying until he fell asleep.

It wasn’t the sound of a train that awoke Troy, but the very fact he was upright and flanked by two familiar faces of the past. On his left was his first wife and on his right was his last wife. Each wife supported him effortlessly by the arms and led him away. His initial thought was how relatively painless death was, and his second thought was how sweet the irony of life could be. Troy had managed to recover his life in the act of killing himself. God was good. Troy was right. Hell didn’t exist. His two wives were back, and they were taking care of him. They laid him down and in his attempt to speak they both touched his lips and vanished into his unconsciousness.

Half the day passed before Troy’s mind came slowly back to him. He kept his eyes shut in order to preserve the faces of his two wives. He replayed their recent touch and combed through the archives of his memory. He thought of how he had lived for them, and how everything he had been in life was for their sake. His memories were saturated with times of perfection and dedication, and they were his to own forever. Nothing could take that away from him. He also knew it was his time to live.

As his mind sharpened, so did his sense of touch. He was lying face down, and he began to feel the gravel beneath him. He knew he rested just feet from the railroad tracks. He still lived, and a smile broke at his relief. His life had been spared by the deaths of his two wives. Troy rolled onto his back, felt his heart kick, and opened his eyes to see a sky of blue.

Simon P. Côté - 2003