My insecurities: Ape nose, beauty scar & other birth defects

My Insecurities, vol. 4

By Rori-Tai Williams

I chose to photograph the parts of my body that disgust me the most under beautiful lighting, in hopes of creating images that would boost my self-confidence. I needed a visual representation of how beautiful these parts of my body could actually be, in order to allow myself to appreciate what the creator gave me.

Ape nose?

Whenever I go home, people in my old neighborhood always stop me and say, “You’re one of those Holloways aren’t you? Yeah, I can tell by that nose — all y’all got that same nose!” However country, ghetto and/or idiotic that statement may sound, it is quite true. Everyone in my family has this nose — the “Ape nose.”

OMG, what happened to your leg?

Over the last 28 years I have been asked that question at least 500 times. If one more person asks me that question, as if someone had just taken a sledgehammer to my leg, I’m going to scream! No, I’m not in pain, and I get so tired of explaining why I have a huge burgundy/candy-apple red patch of skin covering my left knee and calf. Simply put, it’s a damn birthmark — port-wine birthmark, to be exact.

Throughout grade school, my peers and some adults who had never seen a birthmark like this, ridiculed me. I was called every name from “pizza leg” to “red-patch riding hood.” I hated the mark, and I tried to do everything to cover it up — even buying a makeup vanishing cream that cost almost one month’s allowance.

After crying my eyes out to my mom about having to live with this mark for the rest of my life, she told me a story that made me appreciate the mark. While pregnant with me, she developed a serious love for watermelon. So serious in fact that my grandfather (my dad’s father) brought her one whole watermelon from his patch everyday, during the summer and fall of her pregnancy.

Although I have done enough research on port-wines to know it’s not true, my mom swears that this birthmark is a result of her eating too much watermelon during her pregnancy. Ironically, to this day the smell — no, just the simple thought — of a freshly cut watermelon puts a huge Kool-Aid smile on my face. It is absolutely my favorite thing to eat, hands down.

As I got older, I began to see this mark as a work of art produced by the creator, my parents, and about seven dozen watermelons from my Papa’s watermelon patch. Now I love it and no longer consider removing or covering the mark. So when I am asked that ridiculous question, I say, “Oh, it’s just a birth defect.” Then the questioner suddenly has a look of shame or ignorance for asking. The question should be, “Is that your birthmark?”