Now is the melancholy time of year, the month of endings and beginnings, the month of the longest days, but the month when they start getting shorter as well. It's a time of tempered excitement, where the mundane things I do are imbued with more feeling than they normally have, a feeling that what I am doing is at the same time unnecessary, yet urgent. It reminds me of the feeling I have when people who have been visiting are leaving to return home. I want to do things that are nice for them, to help them with their journey, but the main point of my actions is in the offering. I am cleaning out my daughter's backpack, looking for final notes, organizing it, signing off on a planner for the last time. It really doesn't matter, but it will be the last time I do this, so it feels important.
Tonight I walked the dog, and I stood in the darkness while she sniffed all the things she needs to sniff in a walk. As sure as I am standing here, still hale and healthy, holding my dog's leash and feeling the sadness of all the years past, one day I'll be dying in my bed, knowing it's all over, nothing will really be necessary anymore, there will be nothing I can really do to make any difference in the world again. When my mother was dying, I liked to busy myself with all the little tasks I could do for her in that moment, living in that moment, while she was still alive, knowing she was dying. But we are always dying, the big thing that you do that you might feel significant can be rendered useless if the person you are doing it for steps off the curb into the path of an oncoming bus. So every little thing we do should be done with purpose, I think.
When I walk out in the warm days of these late spring days, the sensory input can evoke the same feelings in me as a 46 year old as they did for me as a 16 year old. I remember being a 6 year old, lying on crisp white sheets in a bedroom with an open window, afternoon sun, curtain riffling in the spring breeze. I remember going on summer vacations, riding in the car for hours, sleeping in the back window. Then later falling asleep in my grandparents bedroom and waking up when my father carried me out to put me to sleep on the couch so they could go to bed. I remember my mom crying every time I left, telling me how she cried on the toilet whenever I'd go back to college. And then one day I left my state, I left her for good. She probably cried on the toilet then too. Now all that crying is done, she has nothing more to cry about.
It's another end of the school year. My older daughter is 14 and will be done at her middle school on Wednesday, all the accoutrements of her time there now unnecessary. They are collecting uniform pants and shirts in big boxes in the hallway. She'll be in high school next year, and then all of a sudden, faster than it took for her to get from infancy to preschool, she'll be grown and leaving. And then I can cry on the toilet.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
19 May 2013
Today, Sunday, was a beautiful May day in Carson City. My choir had a concert at the First United Methodist Church there, and we had a little reception afterwards. It wasn't a well attended concert, but the people who were there seemed very appreciative.
Some of the women had carpooled from Reno, and they were going to go to the Olive Garden before heading north. They invited me along, so I ended up meeting them there, and we had a table for 8 with a jovial waiter. At one point a member of our group told him we were a choir, to explain some of the matching uniforms, and we joked about singing for him. After we had already ordered, one of my friends from church came in with a group from her daughter's musical show. It was their last performance, 2 hours before ours. We chatted briefly, and she returned to her table. We were all having fun, some of us drinking wine and chatting. Then a few servers came up and sang happy birthday to a booth next to us. We thought the singing left something to be desired, and I figured the 8 of us plus my friend at the other table could do a better job. I got her, and she came right over. Then I asked whose birthday it was at the table, and she told me her name was Cheyanne. So I stood there and started us off, since no one else wanted to, and I must have picked a good starting note, because we sounded great. My friend, who sings in the church choir with me, but not the women's choir, does a good harmony for Happy Birthday. The restaurant chatter died down as people listened. It was actually fun to sing a song like that, the sheer joy of singing something to celebrate another person.
So it was a fun night, and then later, the waiter came over and told me I was awesome for doing that. I guess sometimes when I want to do something, I can get it going.
Some of the women had carpooled from Reno, and they were going to go to the Olive Garden before heading north. They invited me along, so I ended up meeting them there, and we had a table for 8 with a jovial waiter. At one point a member of our group told him we were a choir, to explain some of the matching uniforms, and we joked about singing for him. After we had already ordered, one of my friends from church came in with a group from her daughter's musical show. It was their last performance, 2 hours before ours. We chatted briefly, and she returned to her table. We were all having fun, some of us drinking wine and chatting. Then a few servers came up and sang happy birthday to a booth next to us. We thought the singing left something to be desired, and I figured the 8 of us plus my friend at the other table could do a better job. I got her, and she came right over. Then I asked whose birthday it was at the table, and she told me her name was Cheyanne. So I stood there and started us off, since no one else wanted to, and I must have picked a good starting note, because we sounded great. My friend, who sings in the church choir with me, but not the women's choir, does a good harmony for Happy Birthday. The restaurant chatter died down as people listened. It was actually fun to sing a song like that, the sheer joy of singing something to celebrate another person.
So it was a fun night, and then later, the waiter came over and told me I was awesome for doing that. I guess sometimes when I want to do something, I can get it going.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
15 May 2013
Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I was thinking about sleeping position in the bed. My mother always slept on the right side and my father on the left as opposed to how my husband and I position ourselves. He must sleep on the right. Later on in my parents' lives, my mother made my father switch sides. Due to health considerations and the fact that my father could only sleep comfortably on his right side, my mother made him sleep on the other side of the bed, the side closest to the bathroom. I started wondering about how and why people make these choices, and do they ever change like that. Then I was wondering about my mother. After my father died, she started sleeping with a body pillow on his side of the bed, the right side. She didn't move back to that position, even though it had been hers for the majority of their relationship. I wondered what side she was sleeping on now, and my mind visualized her in her various home places as my mind tried to picture her sleeping in a bed.
It happens in the space of a second, the speed in which your brain can conceive of all these ideas and conjure they images without any words actually being verbalized internally. It led to the realization that my mother is dead, so she doesn't sleep on any side of the bed. In her rehabilitation home, she had a twin bed with a rail, and I saw that, but then nothing, so I realized. It hit me at that moment, with a deep, absolute, heavy feeling--heavy as in a weight pressing me down and making the pressure of the air around me seem dense--that my mother is dead, completely gone from this earth. I couldn't breathe for a moment, and the house seemed absolutely still. I felt a weird little spark. Why have I never really comprehended it? She is gone. She was cremated, so she is burned up. Her soft, pinky white and freckly skin is burned up. The bony bridge of her nose is burned up. Her curly brown and silver hair, just newly permed not long before she died is gone, burned up. Her beautiful, perfect & strong oval fingernails that always got her so many compliments are burned away. Her bony feet are gone.
Why do we burn bodies? It seems so ecologically unsound, if more hygienic. Can't they put me in the ground in no box, and let my body return to dust as it nourishes the soil? Doesn't it take a lot of energy to burn a body? I have a little sample of ashes in a tiny memorial urn, so I still have a few molecules of her, I guess. What good does that do anyone, though.
It happens in the space of a second, the speed in which your brain can conceive of all these ideas and conjure they images without any words actually being verbalized internally. It led to the realization that my mother is dead, so she doesn't sleep on any side of the bed. In her rehabilitation home, she had a twin bed with a rail, and I saw that, but then nothing, so I realized. It hit me at that moment, with a deep, absolute, heavy feeling--heavy as in a weight pressing me down and making the pressure of the air around me seem dense--that my mother is dead, completely gone from this earth. I couldn't breathe for a moment, and the house seemed absolutely still. I felt a weird little spark. Why have I never really comprehended it? She is gone. She was cremated, so she is burned up. Her soft, pinky white and freckly skin is burned up. The bony bridge of her nose is burned up. Her curly brown and silver hair, just newly permed not long before she died is gone, burned up. Her beautiful, perfect & strong oval fingernails that always got her so many compliments are burned away. Her bony feet are gone.
Why do we burn bodies? It seems so ecologically unsound, if more hygienic. Can't they put me in the ground in no box, and let my body return to dust as it nourishes the soil? Doesn't it take a lot of energy to burn a body? I have a little sample of ashes in a tiny memorial urn, so I still have a few molecules of her, I guess. What good does that do anyone, though.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
17 April 2013
I posted this on Tumblr late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning, so I'm backdating to the 17th. I had been thinking about it after seeing the Dove video. Unlike this blog, that I try not to promote, I wouldn't mind people following my Tumblr. But I get no likes or reblogs or people arguing with how stupid my opinions are.
The Dove Video The Dove video with the sketch artist who draws pictures of women described both by the subject and by a third party…that’s been making the rounds the last couple of days. I’ve read people say it brought them to tears. It certainly made the women in the video cry. I can’t say it wasn’t interesting, because it was interesting to me. The whole process wasn’t there, but the pictures seemed more accurate when people were described by others. It seemed like the artist probably internalized the way people talked and put that into the sketches, because the people actually looked happier in the drawings described by the other person.
But the scenes of the women crying, realizing they didn’t see themselves as being as pretty as others saw them left me cold. Why, why, why are seemingly useful human beings crying over this. So you don’t think you’re pretty? Big fucking deal. A lot of people aren’t pretty, a lot of people don’t fit neatly into the societal standard of beauty. Don’t cry about it, go out and do something useful.
Now don’t get me wrong, I get that beauty as it is defined by society is a commodity and a power. I lump it right up there with all the other useful attributes that humans have, like intelligence, physical strength or good communication and relational skills. It might take a lot of work to get and keep beauty and make it work for you. It’s interesting, though, that most people aren’t crying about how they aren’t those other things. I’m sure we all feel that we wish we were smarter or better, but at the end of the day don’t think it’s within our control to be as talented as we could be, we learn to accept things as they are and work to change what we can.
The bottom line is that I am not beautiful by society’s standards. I am not even considered pretty by society’s standards. I fall short of being truly ugly, but ugly is a word that I think is cute (and I think the word cute is rather ugly), and to me it’s a word that conveys a certain kind of power. There are day where I just embrace the hell out of my ugliness. It’s not anything that anyone has to give me. I’m not pretty. I say that frequently. I don’t cry about the fact that I say that or that I feel that I need to say that. Because, the truth is, of course *I* feel like I’m a lot prettier than others see me. I think I’m smarter than others see me too. I actually think I’m pretty damn valuable. And, it might be really surprising for many people to learn, since I publicly lament not being as kind as I want to be, but I actually think I’m nicer than most people give me credit for.
One thing we all realize fairly early on in our adult lives is that who and what we are attracted to, what we find beautiful, is affected by a lot more than mere aesthetics. We fall for people, and then they define beauty for us. I can call myself ugly because by society’s standards as a middle aged, morbidly obese woman, that’s what I am. I can look at my children and find them absolutely gorgeous to my brain and heart, but I can also pull back and look at them through the lens of current standards of beauty and see where they fall short. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but it’s still a commodity, so I can look at it that way. But because I might say I’m ugly, don’t ever let that fool you into thinking that I don’t actually find the beauty in myself and try and embrace it or keep it just for me my loved ones. And don’t think I don’t have self esteem. Some days I don’t, but that very fact is what helps me evaluate what I’m doing in the world. We all need some, but we don’t need too much of it!
Yes, I wish I were wealthier in the beauty department, but I’m plenty privileged enough. I don’t feel like the truly useful and valuable among us actually worry about it the way many of us might. It kind of makes me sick, in a way because I’d like to feel that transcending this petty crap was possible. But I’m still vain, oh yes I am.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it’s totally normal and desired in some cultures to be self-deprecating, to not take compliments at face value and to deny them out loud even as you partly internalize them. I may not be good at that, since I like things to be pretty up front. But the compliments, oy vey, the “Oh, you’re so pretty” can feel so artificial to me. How many times have you seen a photo of someone and you’re all, “Damn, rough night for that one” and people are all, “Oh you’re so beautiful!” It can take all that I have in me not to say, “Wait, are we looking at the same photo? Because I’m not seeing it.” But I remember that 1)beauty truly IS in the eye of the beholder, 2) people see the beautiful compliment as a statement of how valuable they find that person and 3) people don’t want to kick someone when they are feeling vulnerable.
I try and post new profile photos of myself regularly on some sites, and not at all on other sites (like this one, other than this cartoon thing my husband had done for me as a birthday present years ago—and the artist made my face thinner, because I guess that is a gift). I hate posting new photos of that static moment in time, because I feel like many of us look kind of less than appealing that way, like this one still shot cannot possibly capture the totality of how awesome or how not awesome I am. But I post them to be real, although, of course, yes, you’d better believe it, I don’t post the pics where I think I’m ugly…at least not unless I’m really feeling my ovaries that day.
I accept the societal standard of compliments and looking past the words to the intent even though the words may offend me. The truth be told, I’d rather people say, “awww, you’re so pretty” rather than to say, “Although you are not aesthetically pleasing to my eye and I feel no sexual affinity for you, I wish to show that I find you worthwhile by paying you the compliment of saying you are beautiful.”
I’m 46 now, so I’m really coming into that womanly freedom of not having to be beautiful. I’m not quite there, not quite able to embrace my cronehood, I’m at the crux. I think I’m actually really nice more for the things I don’t say than for the things I do, and I think I have talents that other people don’t appreciate. And I don’t really think I’m ugly, although, as I said, that has it’s own kind of power and freedom. But what if I didn’t second guess things, didn’t stop to question my motives, my actions, my brains, my appearance? I’d be fucking insufferable. And we have all known insufferable people. It’s not pleasant. So let me be self-deprecating and let me have my self esteem and self preservation instincts too, because somewhere in the middle of it all is the truth of who I am.
The Dove Video The Dove video with the sketch artist who draws pictures of women described both by the subject and by a third party…that’s been making the rounds the last couple of days. I’ve read people say it brought them to tears. It certainly made the women in the video cry. I can’t say it wasn’t interesting, because it was interesting to me. The whole process wasn’t there, but the pictures seemed more accurate when people were described by others. It seemed like the artist probably internalized the way people talked and put that into the sketches, because the people actually looked happier in the drawings described by the other person.
But the scenes of the women crying, realizing they didn’t see themselves as being as pretty as others saw them left me cold. Why, why, why are seemingly useful human beings crying over this. So you don’t think you’re pretty? Big fucking deal. A lot of people aren’t pretty, a lot of people don’t fit neatly into the societal standard of beauty. Don’t cry about it, go out and do something useful.
Now don’t get me wrong, I get that beauty as it is defined by society is a commodity and a power. I lump it right up there with all the other useful attributes that humans have, like intelligence, physical strength or good communication and relational skills. It might take a lot of work to get and keep beauty and make it work for you. It’s interesting, though, that most people aren’t crying about how they aren’t those other things. I’m sure we all feel that we wish we were smarter or better, but at the end of the day don’t think it’s within our control to be as talented as we could be, we learn to accept things as they are and work to change what we can.
The bottom line is that I am not beautiful by society’s standards. I am not even considered pretty by society’s standards. I fall short of being truly ugly, but ugly is a word that I think is cute (and I think the word cute is rather ugly), and to me it’s a word that conveys a certain kind of power. There are day where I just embrace the hell out of my ugliness. It’s not anything that anyone has to give me. I’m not pretty. I say that frequently. I don’t cry about the fact that I say that or that I feel that I need to say that. Because, the truth is, of course *I* feel like I’m a lot prettier than others see me. I think I’m smarter than others see me too. I actually think I’m pretty damn valuable. And, it might be really surprising for many people to learn, since I publicly lament not being as kind as I want to be, but I actually think I’m nicer than most people give me credit for.
One thing we all realize fairly early on in our adult lives is that who and what we are attracted to, what we find beautiful, is affected by a lot more than mere aesthetics. We fall for people, and then they define beauty for us. I can call myself ugly because by society’s standards as a middle aged, morbidly obese woman, that’s what I am. I can look at my children and find them absolutely gorgeous to my brain and heart, but I can also pull back and look at them through the lens of current standards of beauty and see where they fall short. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but it’s still a commodity, so I can look at it that way. But because I might say I’m ugly, don’t ever let that fool you into thinking that I don’t actually find the beauty in myself and try and embrace it or keep it just for me my loved ones. And don’t think I don’t have self esteem. Some days I don’t, but that very fact is what helps me evaluate what I’m doing in the world. We all need some, but we don’t need too much of it!
Yes, I wish I were wealthier in the beauty department, but I’m plenty privileged enough. I don’t feel like the truly useful and valuable among us actually worry about it the way many of us might. It kind of makes me sick, in a way because I’d like to feel that transcending this petty crap was possible. But I’m still vain, oh yes I am.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it’s totally normal and desired in some cultures to be self-deprecating, to not take compliments at face value and to deny them out loud even as you partly internalize them. I may not be good at that, since I like things to be pretty up front. But the compliments, oy vey, the “Oh, you’re so pretty” can feel so artificial to me. How many times have you seen a photo of someone and you’re all, “Damn, rough night for that one” and people are all, “Oh you’re so beautiful!” It can take all that I have in me not to say, “Wait, are we looking at the same photo? Because I’m not seeing it.” But I remember that 1)beauty truly IS in the eye of the beholder, 2) people see the beautiful compliment as a statement of how valuable they find that person and 3) people don’t want to kick someone when they are feeling vulnerable.
I try and post new profile photos of myself regularly on some sites, and not at all on other sites (like this one, other than this cartoon thing my husband had done for me as a birthday present years ago—and the artist made my face thinner, because I guess that is a gift). I hate posting new photos of that static moment in time, because I feel like many of us look kind of less than appealing that way, like this one still shot cannot possibly capture the totality of how awesome or how not awesome I am. But I post them to be real, although, of course, yes, you’d better believe it, I don’t post the pics where I think I’m ugly…at least not unless I’m really feeling my ovaries that day.
I accept the societal standard of compliments and looking past the words to the intent even though the words may offend me. The truth be told, I’d rather people say, “awww, you’re so pretty” rather than to say, “Although you are not aesthetically pleasing to my eye and I feel no sexual affinity for you, I wish to show that I find you worthwhile by paying you the compliment of saying you are beautiful.”
I’m 46 now, so I’m really coming into that womanly freedom of not having to be beautiful. I’m not quite there, not quite able to embrace my cronehood, I’m at the crux. I think I’m actually really nice more for the things I don’t say than for the things I do, and I think I have talents that other people don’t appreciate. And I don’t really think I’m ugly, although, as I said, that has it’s own kind of power and freedom. But what if I didn’t second guess things, didn’t stop to question my motives, my actions, my brains, my appearance? I’d be fucking insufferable. And we have all known insufferable people. It’s not pleasant. So let me be self-deprecating and let me have my self esteem and self preservation instincts too, because somewhere in the middle of it all is the truth of who I am.
13 April 2013
I was driving to South Suburban Reno to do a publicity mailing prep for my choir on Saturday the 13th. I turned onto Lakeside from McCarran and drove towards the Bartley Ranch area. Just in that one little stretch of road where there is an apartment complex next to a shopping area, I saw some interesting things.
There was a garage sale like thing happening in the grass between two apartment buildings, but it was really an overstock lamp sale. There were all sorts of lamps and lamps with tables out on the grass, and people were stopping to buy them. About 30 feet up the street were some men removing one of the large pine trees that grow in front of the apartment buildings. It looked to be a serious job. Then after that, in the shopping center, were a group of bicycle riders, all decked out in their bright, graphics-covered spandex. I wished I had my camera and could have taken photos. It looked like a Richard Scarry picture book.
Coming back, the bikes and arborists were gone, but the lamps were still out. There was a beautiful dog with silky blonde curls with its feet up on a table while the human pondered a lamp.
There was a garage sale like thing happening in the grass between two apartment buildings, but it was really an overstock lamp sale. There were all sorts of lamps and lamps with tables out on the grass, and people were stopping to buy them. About 30 feet up the street were some men removing one of the large pine trees that grow in front of the apartment buildings. It looked to be a serious job. Then after that, in the shopping center, were a group of bicycle riders, all decked out in their bright, graphics-covered spandex. I wished I had my camera and could have taken photos. It looked like a Richard Scarry picture book.
Coming back, the bikes and arborists were gone, but the lamps were still out. There was a beautiful dog with silky blonde curls with its feet up on a table while the human pondered a lamp.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
27 March 2013
When I was in middle school, I was teased and called names. You learn to shake off a certain amount of this. By the time I got to middle school, I was used to a fair amount of name calling and meanness. I could just put my head down and ignore the people who were calling out to me to get my attention, just so they could look me in the face and laugh when they made a joke at my expense. People saying they liked my homemade pants, where could they get a pair; boys pointing at each other saying, "He likes you!"; the names like fatso and tub of lard were familiar. I had heard them from my own mother at some point in my life. She didn't like fat kids either.
But one day when I was in the hall on the back end of the gym, having either just come from gym or from the bathroom nearby, a boy called me Blubber Lips. I was mortified. I didn't even know that was a thing. I knew I was fat, there wasn't anything I could do to hide that fact. But blubber lips? Is that a Thing, a Bad Thing, to have fat lips? It bothered me a lot at the time even though I have no idea which boy said it and, truth be told, whether he was actually talking to me. I assumed he was, because it felt like most random comments shouted out in my direction were towards me, even though I tried to ignore them and pretend they weren't about me at all.
For some reason, the thought that there was another part of my body that could be fat and considered unattractive, a body part that I just had never considered as problematic, that was just hard to take. I think after that I deliberately tried to make my lips look as non-fat as possible. I kept them closed tightly often times.
A few years later I was in a musical with a local singing group. A woman was helping me apply stage make-up, and she drew a line around my lips with lip liner before she filled it in with lipstick. She told me she was making my mouth a little fuller as I had thin lips. I do? I asked in amazement. I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing either, but it seemed like fuller lips were better. It was just a statement of fact, and I wasn't sure if it was good or bad, but later I realized I wanted fuller lips. I was a person with lips not big enough for the rest of her, it would make more sense if all of me was big, I thought.
My top lip is thin. It seems to have always been problematic. It has a scar, and it is uneven. When I was 7, I was in a bike accident. A boy deliberately rode into me and knocked me over...I think. I lost a bit of time around the accident. I remember riding down the street with a group of girls, going as fast as we could, and seeing this group of boys in a driveway. A boy was on a bike, at the top of a ramp, smiling. The next thing I remember is waking up as my dad was carrying me down the street to my home. He was wearing a maroon shirt, and my face was against his chest. I was in pain. My hands were torn up, with flesh gouged out of them, and my lips were a mess. I must have landed right on them. I had a giant swelled lip that was black and red. It looked like the bubble in a pizza crust at that pizza place at the mall.
My parents took me to the emergency room, and I had stitches. I remember lying on the table and feeling so sleepy, looking at the lights. They told me to put ice on my face to reduce the swelling. My mom and sister thought I looked so terrible that I remember being very diligent with the ice pack, wanting to impress my mother with my healed face. It worked, she was excited when it started to look better. I remember lying in bed at night, looking at my poor chunked out hands and crying that someone would hurt me like that.
My mom was angry at the boy who did it, and started making me go out with her into the street whenever she saw him playing. She would go up to him and yell, "Look what you did to my daughter, look what you did to her! Are you proud of yourself?" That was embarrassing, and I started resisting going outside, so she'd yell from the doorway. Eventually she got over it, thank goodness.
When I talked to friends about the accident, they told me I was passed out on the street and bleeding, and you could still see the blood stains. I couldn't see them when I went to look--they looked like old oil stains, there was no blood. And I wasn't damaged internally, so it wasn't like I was coughing up blood, as they said I was. Oh, the melodrama of that age. The girls also told me that the boy's mother came up to me and told me to get up go home and stop faking it. I was really angry at her for saying that. I wanted her to admit she was wrong. My sister apparently brought some kids by the house to look at me through the window, saying I was a monster. I don't remember that ever happening, thankfully, although maybe I would have thought that was funny. I remember getting to eat poundcake cut into little squares. My lip healed, but there was a scar at on the top lip where the little peak was supposed to be, and my lips were forever asymmetrical after that, although that probably isn't uncommon anyway.
I asked my father about that accident when I was an adult, what did he see when he came to get me. He said I was just sitting on the curb, crying. I seemed stunned. He told me come on home, but because I seemed out of it, he picked me up and carried me.
The other day I was putting lotion on my face, and lamenting that I have my mother's thin top lip with very little peak--unlike my husband and my daughter's beautiful little cupid's boy lips. My scar isn't even noticeable anymore, but it's the same darn lip my mother had, that's why I have thin lips. She did too. At that point I remembered when that boy called my Blubber Lips. I'm 46 now and was only 12 then, and he may not have even been yelling at me, but I carried it anyway. Funny how those things stick with you and come back at the oddest times. It probably explains some of my insecurities and why it is still easy for me to believe that I get less respect because I am a fat woman. But in some ways this can be freeing.
But one day when I was in the hall on the back end of the gym, having either just come from gym or from the bathroom nearby, a boy called me Blubber Lips. I was mortified. I didn't even know that was a thing. I knew I was fat, there wasn't anything I could do to hide that fact. But blubber lips? Is that a Thing, a Bad Thing, to have fat lips? It bothered me a lot at the time even though I have no idea which boy said it and, truth be told, whether he was actually talking to me. I assumed he was, because it felt like most random comments shouted out in my direction were towards me, even though I tried to ignore them and pretend they weren't about me at all.
For some reason, the thought that there was another part of my body that could be fat and considered unattractive, a body part that I just had never considered as problematic, that was just hard to take. I think after that I deliberately tried to make my lips look as non-fat as possible. I kept them closed tightly often times.
A few years later I was in a musical with a local singing group. A woman was helping me apply stage make-up, and she drew a line around my lips with lip liner before she filled it in with lipstick. She told me she was making my mouth a little fuller as I had thin lips. I do? I asked in amazement. I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing either, but it seemed like fuller lips were better. It was just a statement of fact, and I wasn't sure if it was good or bad, but later I realized I wanted fuller lips. I was a person with lips not big enough for the rest of her, it would make more sense if all of me was big, I thought.
My top lip is thin. It seems to have always been problematic. It has a scar, and it is uneven. When I was 7, I was in a bike accident. A boy deliberately rode into me and knocked me over...I think. I lost a bit of time around the accident. I remember riding down the street with a group of girls, going as fast as we could, and seeing this group of boys in a driveway. A boy was on a bike, at the top of a ramp, smiling. The next thing I remember is waking up as my dad was carrying me down the street to my home. He was wearing a maroon shirt, and my face was against his chest. I was in pain. My hands were torn up, with flesh gouged out of them, and my lips were a mess. I must have landed right on them. I had a giant swelled lip that was black and red. It looked like the bubble in a pizza crust at that pizza place at the mall.
My parents took me to the emergency room, and I had stitches. I remember lying on the table and feeling so sleepy, looking at the lights. They told me to put ice on my face to reduce the swelling. My mom and sister thought I looked so terrible that I remember being very diligent with the ice pack, wanting to impress my mother with my healed face. It worked, she was excited when it started to look better. I remember lying in bed at night, looking at my poor chunked out hands and crying that someone would hurt me like that.
My mom was angry at the boy who did it, and started making me go out with her into the street whenever she saw him playing. She would go up to him and yell, "Look what you did to my daughter, look what you did to her! Are you proud of yourself?" That was embarrassing, and I started resisting going outside, so she'd yell from the doorway. Eventually she got over it, thank goodness.
When I talked to friends about the accident, they told me I was passed out on the street and bleeding, and you could still see the blood stains. I couldn't see them when I went to look--they looked like old oil stains, there was no blood. And I wasn't damaged internally, so it wasn't like I was coughing up blood, as they said I was. Oh, the melodrama of that age. The girls also told me that the boy's mother came up to me and told me to get up go home and stop faking it. I was really angry at her for saying that. I wanted her to admit she was wrong. My sister apparently brought some kids by the house to look at me through the window, saying I was a monster. I don't remember that ever happening, thankfully, although maybe I would have thought that was funny. I remember getting to eat poundcake cut into little squares. My lip healed, but there was a scar at on the top lip where the little peak was supposed to be, and my lips were forever asymmetrical after that, although that probably isn't uncommon anyway.
I asked my father about that accident when I was an adult, what did he see when he came to get me. He said I was just sitting on the curb, crying. I seemed stunned. He told me come on home, but because I seemed out of it, he picked me up and carried me.
The other day I was putting lotion on my face, and lamenting that I have my mother's thin top lip with very little peak--unlike my husband and my daughter's beautiful little cupid's boy lips. My scar isn't even noticeable anymore, but it's the same darn lip my mother had, that's why I have thin lips. She did too. At that point I remembered when that boy called my Blubber Lips. I'm 46 now and was only 12 then, and he may not have even been yelling at me, but I carried it anyway. Funny how those things stick with you and come back at the oddest times. It probably explains some of my insecurities and why it is still easy for me to believe that I get less respect because I am a fat woman. But in some ways this can be freeing.
15 December 2012
Guns are violent. Guns are inanimate and often silent, but in their function they are violent. They are like the forces of nature in that way, and reflect the natures of human beings who created tools that are useful and violent to help them persevere against a capricious and often violent world. Many things are strong, deadly and operate with a violent effect, but guns were created specifically with one need in mind--a way to concentrate power into a wieldable form, a power that is beyond what the physical bodies of humans can achieve without a tool. All weapons, all tools are a way that we use our intellect to extend our physical abilities to gain an advantage, and a firearm is a tool in that sense. But to see a gun, to see a photo of a firearm has a specific effect on us, produces a specific reaction. We know the significance of them; we know they are created to kill. Even if we never fire a gun except at a target, and see guns only as a type of sport, we know the original purpose of target practice. This is true of weapons.
Yet we are able to distance ourselves from the violence of guns, knowing we have them for a purpose we hope never to encounter. We can view them in a historical context that is colored by the very bloody, deadly conflict between humans so that guns are just part of this noise, a somewhat interesting and admired part of it. We can evaluate the tactics of war like a game and reenact these wars in recreation as an enjoyable pastime. We will adhere to a religious belief in which the instrument of torture and death of our Savior becomes the symbol of the Savior's sacrifice. Eons pass, and we distill very real things into symbolic ones, and then change the meanings. Humans do this all the time. It's one of the things, I believe, that is uniquely human. It takes a certain amount of intelligence to be calculatedly violent. Yet we maintain that ability to gloss over the significance of things so that as biological organisms, we can continue to thrive and reproduce. Many many things suffer at our hands, and we laugh at their suffering, deeming it part of nature.
Part II, written after December 15th
People love guns, people hate guns, people imagine a world with no guns; they should imagine a world without violence, for a world just as motivated by greed and self preservation in the gathering of resources but one without technology is a part of history. The truth is not necessarily revealed by facts. It may be ludicrous to talk about guns as being protection for women when more women and children die today because of firearms. But we are talking at cross purposes, comparing the statistical with the ideological. Do you believe, at your core, that you have the right to take up a weapon and defend yourself and your loved ones? Are you a pacifist. If you are not, what are the limits of the weapon you should be able to choose? Does the Second Amendment even address this? It seems very vague and insufficient for our purposes today.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed could be interpreted as there shall be no governmental regulation of any kinds of weaponry. But there is, of course. We regulate and control when and where firearms can be used, who can own them and who cannot, and what kind they can own.
A Constitution that cannot change or be interpreted in such a way to reflect the needs of the people in the society it is used to govern is useless. Philosophical beliefs can transcend time and space, the good ones always will. But we can't take 200 years of technology and ignore it. We are dealing with an issue of rights in a world where what was once not even something someone could imagine is now beyond possible. We can argue that the technology we have is too dangerous and we need to find ways to reign it in because our culture and society are such that we demand this as a people who elect leaders to govern us. We can interpret the Constitution literally, and therefore say we believe that we are limited to the firearms technology available at the time. We can't, however, say that there are only two options: no firearms, or unlimited weaponry. We aren't allowed to own nuclear suitcase bombs. We are allowed to interpret and write laws that we feel will serve us best as a technology.
Ultimately I do believe that people have the right to arm and defend themselves. I do believe people have the right to work together to interpret and change the laws in a way that is beneficial to society as a whole, in a way that is Constitutionally sound. I feel that, like the abortion issue, we are comparing apples to oranges. When you look at the issue of individual owning and using firearms, and when you look at the issue of people having abortions, the thought at first might be that these things are terrible and basically exist to end the life of living things. Just like most women who choose to have an abortion aren't saying, "yay, I get to kill a fetus", most people who use weapons aren't saying, "I'm going to go kill some children." People are making decisions about what is best for themselves and their family, even if it comes at a price that seems too high to others. I'm always amazed, I must say, when people who want to reserve the right to kill another human or group of humans to preserve their property as well as their safety, don't believe that a woman should have the right to end the pregnancy in her own body before the baby could ever exist outside of it. If there is a repercussion from the Universe and the State in making this decision, then each person has the right to make that decision for him or herself and deal with both the legal and spiritual fallout.
With the culture, the history, the ideology around the myriad of dangerous technology, whether weapon or not, we will never be able to keep people from dying violently, before their times. I'm willing to be proved wrong, I'm willing to try, but part of me believes that there are worse things than dying by a firearm. When I think of that woman in India, pulled gang raped to death, and thrown off the bus, I think it would have been better for her to have been shot.
I started writing this on December 15th, but I kept it as a draft for a long time
Yet we are able to distance ourselves from the violence of guns, knowing we have them for a purpose we hope never to encounter. We can view them in a historical context that is colored by the very bloody, deadly conflict between humans so that guns are just part of this noise, a somewhat interesting and admired part of it. We can evaluate the tactics of war like a game and reenact these wars in recreation as an enjoyable pastime. We will adhere to a religious belief in which the instrument of torture and death of our Savior becomes the symbol of the Savior's sacrifice. Eons pass, and we distill very real things into symbolic ones, and then change the meanings. Humans do this all the time. It's one of the things, I believe, that is uniquely human. It takes a certain amount of intelligence to be calculatedly violent. Yet we maintain that ability to gloss over the significance of things so that as biological organisms, we can continue to thrive and reproduce. Many many things suffer at our hands, and we laugh at their suffering, deeming it part of nature.
Part II, written after December 15th
People love guns, people hate guns, people imagine a world with no guns; they should imagine a world without violence, for a world just as motivated by greed and self preservation in the gathering of resources but one without technology is a part of history. The truth is not necessarily revealed by facts. It may be ludicrous to talk about guns as being protection for women when more women and children die today because of firearms. But we are talking at cross purposes, comparing the statistical with the ideological. Do you believe, at your core, that you have the right to take up a weapon and defend yourself and your loved ones? Are you a pacifist. If you are not, what are the limits of the weapon you should be able to choose? Does the Second Amendment even address this? It seems very vague and insufficient for our purposes today.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed could be interpreted as there shall be no governmental regulation of any kinds of weaponry. But there is, of course. We regulate and control when and where firearms can be used, who can own them and who cannot, and what kind they can own.
A Constitution that cannot change or be interpreted in such a way to reflect the needs of the people in the society it is used to govern is useless. Philosophical beliefs can transcend time and space, the good ones always will. But we can't take 200 years of technology and ignore it. We are dealing with an issue of rights in a world where what was once not even something someone could imagine is now beyond possible. We can argue that the technology we have is too dangerous and we need to find ways to reign it in because our culture and society are such that we demand this as a people who elect leaders to govern us. We can interpret the Constitution literally, and therefore say we believe that we are limited to the firearms technology available at the time. We can't, however, say that there are only two options: no firearms, or unlimited weaponry. We aren't allowed to own nuclear suitcase bombs. We are allowed to interpret and write laws that we feel will serve us best as a technology.
Ultimately I do believe that people have the right to arm and defend themselves. I do believe people have the right to work together to interpret and change the laws in a way that is beneficial to society as a whole, in a way that is Constitutionally sound. I feel that, like the abortion issue, we are comparing apples to oranges. When you look at the issue of individual owning and using firearms, and when you look at the issue of people having abortions, the thought at first might be that these things are terrible and basically exist to end the life of living things. Just like most women who choose to have an abortion aren't saying, "yay, I get to kill a fetus", most people who use weapons aren't saying, "I'm going to go kill some children." People are making decisions about what is best for themselves and their family, even if it comes at a price that seems too high to others. I'm always amazed, I must say, when people who want to reserve the right to kill another human or group of humans to preserve their property as well as their safety, don't believe that a woman should have the right to end the pregnancy in her own body before the baby could ever exist outside of it. If there is a repercussion from the Universe and the State in making this decision, then each person has the right to make that decision for him or herself and deal with both the legal and spiritual fallout.
With the culture, the history, the ideology around the myriad of dangerous technology, whether weapon or not, we will never be able to keep people from dying violently, before their times. I'm willing to be proved wrong, I'm willing to try, but part of me believes that there are worse things than dying by a firearm. When I think of that woman in India, pulled gang raped to death, and thrown off the bus, I think it would have been better for her to have been shot.
I started writing this on December 15th, but I kept it as a draft for a long time
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
