We can't all be Terriers

My latest running excursion:
The only sound is my rasping breath that whooshes from my lungs in time with the landing of my left foot.  I have found that making myself breath that way prevents me from holding my breath.  The sun peeks at me through a gathering of palm trees beyond the line of the canal.  I run towards it, keeping my eyes on the horizon.  I vaguely register when my brain slips beyond the stresses of the day, the worries of money, working, being a good parent, getting enough done.  I let it all disappear.  I allow other sensations to take over: the rotation of my hips, rising of each knee, pumping of each fist, and the push of my toes each time I leave the ground.  I listen to my breath.

            I don’t even think about how much time has passed until I see another runner down the canal coming towards me on the black path.  It is a woman.  She is a good distance away and I am not wearing my glasses, but I can see the hour glass shape of her body.  I can see the bright pink sports bra in contrast to her bare stomach and ribcage.  I find my pace slowing, faltering just a bit, and I begin to walk. 



Not very long ago she was the size of my shoe.



My sixty pound puppy complains about the change in pace by tugging on her leash as though hinting at me to speed up again.  It is not a very subtle hint.  Daisy is a mix of some kind of shepherd.  When I adopted her through a rescue agency she was a dainty little thing, with folded ears, and small paws.  They had told me she was a terrier mix.  Within two months I knew they had been grossly mistaken.  One day her ears would no longer flop down, but stood straight up, huge, open, and pointed at the tips.  Her legs were suddenly long and thin.  Her short strawberry-blond fur became darker at the end of her long snout.  Now her head reaches my hand without me having to bend over.  Daisy runs like me, with all the intensity of a racing greyhound, but in slow motion. 

I position Daisy on my left as the approaching woman passes us on the right.  I notice the woman’s flat abs, they seem to ripple with each breath she lets out.  She is petit, maybe 5ft 5”.  The muscle on her bare thigh creates a line that runs from her knee and disappears in taut skin before reaching her spandex shorts.

“Morning,” I smile and the woman’s eyes flicker briefly towards me before she goes by with a swish of bottle-black pony tail. 

I wait a few more steps before increasing my speed to a jog.  I am acutely aware of my own stomach that bounces with every step I take, and my breasts which seem to swing from side to side beneath my oversized t-shirt.  As I begin to speed up I fear my yoga pants have begun to slide down one hip and I tug on them. 

My thoughts are no longer clear, my head is not empty as I speed up and let Daisy have full leash by simply letting the loop fall around my wrist. 

Daisy suddenly lurched towards a swooping bird.  I stumbled toward the edge of the canal, feeling like my shoulder had nearly been wrenched from the socket.  I don't fall in.  Thank Goodness!  I probably wasn't actually very close, but it sure was a daunting thought.  A brief yank of the leash had Daisy appropriately contrite, her ears apologetically flattened before we resumed our forward run and they perked right back up.

 I decided to, figuratively, perk up my own ears, and increased my speed. 

I am a large woman.  I have wide shoulders, a strong back, and long thick legs.  I can lift an eighty pound boy from his bed to his wheelchair. I can carry my sleeping six year old from the car and up two sets of stairs.  I have strong knees that support me through days where I never get the chance to sit.  My heart is slow and steady like a horse.  My wide hips have cradled a fetus, my sagging breasts nurtured an infant. 

In that moment I decided that I was meant to be a shepherd and not a terrier, no matter how much I may think I want to be different, and no matter how much society thinks I should be different.    



Wish I had some better pics,but she eally doesn't stay still for long.



I ran my hardest that morning, letting my muscles push and pull me away from my own thoughts.  My head cleared like it sometimes does when I run, and I swear the sun winked at me through ink-dark palm leaves.

Love, Hate, and Cookies

I love cooking for my family.  I like to dance while I do it.  I turn on my favorite music at the time, and do lazy twirls and booty shaking while I maneuver through the process of cooking a great meal, like a Boss! (which basically means to do something with expertise, skill, and domination) I am pretty good at creating delicious and satisfying meals that others enjoy and want again and again.  I also LOVE doing it.  My favorite food is vegetables.  I cook with them in every meal.  I not only create vegetable dishes, but I also use them like spices or flavorings.  I get a great sense of satisfaction in giving another person something tasty and also full of nutrition.  Nourishment is like sunshine.

I sometimes hate food.  I often have the thought that I wish I could eat like a normal person, like everyone else seems to be able to do.  I get the impression that people can eat without having the desire to gorge themselves.  I get the impression that people can have a sugary morsel of dessert and not suffer from a migraine the next day.  I often have the thought that I wish food wasn’t necessary.

As you can see these two things are at opposite ends of the spectrum, but I have to feel both of them in order to find a place in the middle to stand.  And to eat.  Don’t get me wrong. I DO eat, usually three to five times a day, and I like the taste and feel of food, but we have not always been friends and sometimes we battle.

I am not exactly sure when or why that battle began.  I have many poignant childhood memories of food.  One involves my mother.  Married young, with seven kids, a husband, and her own demons to sort out, my mother has had some emotionally unstable times.  I remember us being evicted from a tiny apartment where the eight of us(my parents had six kids at the time) shared two little bedrooms.  My parents couldn’t pay the rent, had no funds for car repairs, and were in a general state of distress.  My mother took the last of our food stamps and bought several packages of Oreo cookies and a gallon of milk.  I remember sitting across the table on a stack of boxes, my chin resting on the scratched wood surface, watching my mother eat an entire package of Oreo’s while she cried.  All of us kids had cookies too.  It was like a reward for surviving the difficult time we were having.  Or perhaps it was a treat in order to feel normal. My mother’s sobs between mouthfuls was very confusing.  Me and Oreo’s have never really gotten along. 

Do many people form relationships with food?  Is food sometimes like that sister, who you love, but you just can’t stand to spend more than an hour together because you end up offending each other?  Is your relationship with food a love affair?  Do you dream about it, wish for it?  Do you use it like a bandage for hard times, or a balm for a broken heart? 

I am putting food in a new category.  I believe it is simply nourishment, but also a tool in which to bring people together.  Like when I spend a little extra time making a meal particularly special to share with my family.  I suppose I still use food to express emotion, but now the food is usually healthful and the emotion is happiness.

History of a Body

There are things that happen to a body when it is running.  Muscles pull and push the weight of bones, fat, and tissue.  Joints rotate and bend.  Breath has to enter and leave the lungs, providing oxygen to a pounding heart and to the blood which travels everywhere.  I watch other people run and they make it look so easy and fluid: thin graceful legs creating a circular motion as they glide across the ground with straight backs and relaxed shoulders.

 I don’t feel like they look. Not even close. 

I feel like my feet slam into the hard ground like a hammer, reverberating up my shins, through knees and thighs and hips, all the way to my spine.  I find myself pulling my shoulders up around my ears as if I can lift my legs higher that way.  I have to remind myself to un-clinch my fists.  But despite the tensing of muscles and the hard ground beneath me, I feel certain things start to fall away.  I feel as if it is my right to pound and pound and pound at the earth. As if I can pound out dark and unpleasant memories.  I feel as though every time I run I leave behind a little bit more of the things that my body wants to forget. 

 I become lighter.

·         A body was born 31 years ago, a female body, small and perfect, about 6 and ½ lbs. 

·         When the body was 5 years old it was inappropriately used for a period of time by a curious teenage boy who didn’t understand the ramifications of what he was doing, and who was damaged him-self.  The body was used with a blanket pushed over its eyes and never told anyone. 

·         When the body was 10 its bony joints and thin limbs and sturdy core changed.  The body’s hips became wider.  It developed a soft round belly, and was the only one in dance class that had to wear a bra beneath its leotard. 

·         When the body was 14 it was told how beautiful it was and how desirable it was by men who were old.  The body did not feel beautiful. 

·         When the body was in its teen years it became larger and softer.  It was the token chubby member on the basketball and volleyball team.  It was the brunt of crude jokes and it was groped by a stranger.  The body snuck food and ate in private.  Then it would make itself vomit.

·         When the body was 18 years old it was spied upon everyday in the shower by a family member until it found out and moved away.

·         When a body was 22 it was trapped in a bathroom at a party and raped repeatedly by three different men who wouldn’t let it leave. 

·         Until the body was 24 it starved itself of food for days at a time and then gorged until it was ill. 

·         When the body was 25 it grew a baby within its womb.  It nourished itself.

·         When the body was 27 it was told that it had fibromyalgia, which is a chronic pain disorder that explained the exhaustion, the cramping muscles, sore and swollen joints, migraines, weight gain, and constant pain after physical activity. 

·         The body has learned how to feed itself.  It knows how to work through the pain.  It is still learning. 

All bodies must have a history.  The ones that pass me by while we run alongside the canal.  The ones that have never been fat.  The ones that have to fight through pain every day.  I accept the history.  It is the past and cannot be changed, re-written, or erased.  It simply is.  But I am finding that if I run with my worn out tennis shoes, pulling my too large body along the way, I might be able to leave a little of the history in the dust.  Perhaps that is why I have chosen this painful and difficult and embarrassing activity.

Have you ever looked at the history of your body?  Have you thought about writing down the things that have been done to it or the things you subject it to?  It is a cathartic experience.  It is also very strange to look at those life experiences from a distance.  I have never done it before and, like running, seeing those events on the computer screen made them just a little less important, a bit farther behind me.