Let Us Eat

…Let Them Eat Cake.

Does anyone else have feelings of embarrassment or self-consiousness when eating in front of others?  I do.  If you remember my history you may be able to guess why.  As a young woman, a pre-teen (at a healthy weight, I might add) I began to feel very ashamed of my body, and I associated this shame with being too large and associated that with food.  I developed feelings of shame when it came to eating.  I would often not eat at school, not eat in front of other people, and claim to not be hungry when I was.  I felt that a girl who was fat, ugly, and unattractive, like I believed myself to be, was seen by others as not deserving of food.  I felt as though I should not eat.  I would often go without sustenance for two or three days at a time.  When I did eat, I would do it privately.  In secret.  Where many shameful and bad things are done.  Without witnesses.

Despite the maturity gained since then, and the knowledge and understanding I have about food, eating disorders, health, and the definition of beauty, I still feel most comfortable when I am eating alone or with close family.  I still always deny myself a morsel or a treat with a friend when offered.  I still claim to not be hungry when I am.  I believe I do this simply out of habit, simply because I am choosing to remain safely in my comfort zone.  

I no longer starve myself. (Well, not beyond the understandable I-forgot-to-eat-lunch-because-I-had-such-a-busy-day reasoning)  I no longer feel ashamed when consuming food, nor do I hide to do it.  I do not go hungry for long. I eat meals with my family every single day.

 I eat along with everyone else at social gatherings.  I do those things, but never without a twinge of some remaining insecurity.  Perhaps a mere piece of the ideology that says I am undeserving of nutrition, still lingers in my mind somewhere.

As you know, I got married a couple of weeks ago.  Being a bride brought forward so many of my past feelings of a poor body-image.  Being the center of attention, presenting myself to be seen and photographed (in white no less!) brought back some of those feelings of ugliness and shame of my appearance.  I had a fantastic wedding and reception.  I had fun, but every moment in my head I reminded myself of my own worth, and I pushed away those images of an unattractive woman. 

I feel satisfied and happy to say that I won that round.

Fat Suit

Episode 1

The idea of the proverbial fat Suit may possibly be a tired metaphor.  It may possibly be cliché and well overused.  However, maybe it really is accurate.  I completely believe that my fat is not me.  I am in here somewhere.  My appearance, my body, my fat suit does not show the world what is inside and what I am capable of.  My appearance is deceptive.    

I feel like a beautiful, capable, intelligent, and talented woman.  I feel sexy, and pretty, and tall, and graceful.  I feel like a thoughtful, helpful, and active human being.

 I am not lazy.  I am not dumb.  I am not slow in thinking.  I am not helpless.  BUT, I think my appearance often portrays those things. 

It is very difficult not to think of myself in the way that society treats me.  It is difficult, but not impossible.  I have been working on how to handle it, how to deal with it, and how I should feel about the judgments that others make when they see me as just an overweight, incapable, less intelligent member of society. 

I met a friend for lunch one day.  We stood in line at the Paradise Bakery, my friend ordered first.  The employee at the register was a young man, possibly of Asian origins.  His shoulders were about the width of one of my legs. 

“Would you like a Coke with that?” he asked my friend and she accepted, swiped her card and shuffled over.

“Would you like a Diet Coke with that?” he asked me and waited politely for my response.

“No, water’s fine, thanks,” he charged me for my chicken salad and bottled water then put two complimentary chocolate chip cookies on my tray without my consent. 

We sat at a small, teetering table across from one another.  She eyed my tray. 

“Hey! How come you got two?” she asked and retrieved both cookies, knowing that I often forgo eating sweets. 

“The kid was confused,” I said simply, and smiled.  “More for you, I guess.”

            I have often wondered about that difference in offering me a diet coke, and my firend a regular coke.  I had watched the man go through the line of customers asking the average and small sized customers if they would like a drink, and asking the customers with a few extra pounds if they would like diet.  His criteria seemed odd to me.  It was also very odd that he gave me an extra cookie when the meal only came with one.  Did he believe I should be on a diet, but then also believed that I would like additional dessert?  Where did this variance in treatment of the customers stem from?

One time I was shopping at the mall.  A woman who passed me by smiled kindly and gave me a compliment. She said:

“Oh that is a lovely top!”  I smiled back and began to nod my “thank you” when she added, “You are so brave for wearing such a bright color at your size.”    

Both of these types of situations are not uncommon.  We could very well assume that the insensitive remarks and attitudes are just a simple case of people being ignorant.  But, how can the majority of a society be so ignorant as to think that a large person should not wear bright colors, or that a large person will only want to drink diet drinks?  I understand this was just one man at a restaurant and one woman at the mall, but I see and hear and am shown this type of prejudice by people over and over and over again. 

I like to think of people as good and kind, in general.  I try to be unbiased in my treatment to others.  I could easily judge someone, but it makes no sense, simply because I have no earthly idea what brought them to where and who they are today. 

As members of a very diverse society, I feel it is more than ignorant to make judgments based on appearance.  I feel the habit of assuming a fat person is less intelligent because they don’t appear to understand the concept of calories in versus calories burned, to be a tragic assumption.  The individuals who make those types of assumptions may be wonderful people, and may have a lot to offer the world.  But, what will they miss out on by continuing to feel as though overweight people are inferior? 

How often do we make assumptions based on someone’s appearance?  How often do we miss out on really getting to know and really learning about someone else because of our ignorant judgments getting in the way of seeing a person for what they truly are? 

I know that humans beings are capable of looking past the fat suit, and past the poor suit, the uneducated suit, the dissabled suit, an all the other suits that do not define who a person is on the inside.

Out of Town

There is nothing exciting to my blog entry today, nothing remotely profound or intensely interesting. I am writing this from a balcony, sitting in the sun in seventy degree weather, with a cool breeze and amazing mountain views.  I am on my honeymoon in Sedona.  But, I must submit something. 

I don't yet have pictures to share of the special day, but I may post a photo of this view.  I may not. :)  That’s the great thing about being on vacation.  I don't HAVE to do anything.  J

I have had a little time to look back on Friday, and reflect on the events of my wedding day.  It was definitely not perfect.  First I will tell you of the things that went wrong.

 1 .The wedding favors (160 lovely white boxes filled with 1200+ home baked Italian wedding cookies and chocolates, wrapped in bowed ribbons with a ring and love bird tied to it, and a monogram P, for Partridge) were all destroyed.  They looked beautiful stacked in two pyramids on the ends of a long decorated gift table the last time I saw them, but by the time the reception started (indoor reception) they were covered in ants. 

2. My mother forgot how to tie up my train.  We were an hour late for my own photos because she and my sister could not figure it out.  It was a European bustle with a color coated system which is a serious of four buttons and loops to put together beneath the back of the dress to let the material fall in precise drapes.  I walked around half the reception with people stepping on me or having to carry my train over my arm, before a good friend of mine fixed it for me.  Her head shoved up the back of my dress for ten minutes outside the reception hall.  :)  Sorry Mom and Sis.  Thank you, Erin. 

3. The punch bowl did not make it to the reception.  I spent hours making 64 gallons worth of real fruit punch, only to arrive to the reception (45 min late) with a room full of guests and no drinks at all. 

4. The catering was late.  It took an hour and a half instead of 30 minutes for the catering to arrive to the reception because the delicious, but obviously low staffed, Italian restaurant did not have everything ready when my sisters went to pick it up.  So, lots of guests, no drinks, no food. 

5. Something happened to the best man, he got lost, held for ransom by pirates, abducted by aliens, or something.  He never showed.  (We found out later he had a valid reason.  Let’s just say he was released with only a small bounty paid). 

6.  My grandmother ended up holding my purse during family pictures and left to go who-knows-where.  The keys to our car were in my purse so when the formal photo shoot was over I had no way of getting from the Temple to the reception hall. 

7. Towards the beginning part of the party some running children knocked over the DJ's external hard drive, efficiently breaking it, losing the prearranged song plans for our reception. 

With all those minor, but troublesome, events that took place to overthrow our wedding reception, it was still a success.  No one seemed to care that there were no wedding favors.  The food, when it arrived, was delicious and well consumed.  The bride and groom coming in late seemed like the plan for a grand entrance.  The drinks were also delicious and consumed.  The DJ did a fantastic job of winging it, and the dancing was entertaining, hilarious, and fun. 

After a rough start, it was a beautiful ending.  The best thing of all is that I am now married to my Brian, and my son is ecstatic over it. 

It was perfect in all of its imperfection.  Just like me, just like us all, and just like this life.  Beautifully imperfect. 

Fat Bride

 I am getting married This Friday.  J 

Blog entries, homework, and going to classes have gotten more difficult with all the running around, taking care of the last minute details.  Being engaged and planning a wedding has been a wonderful, exciting, stressful, and sometimes infuriating process.  With a little boy to consider and also his 7^th birthday to celebrate sufficiently, I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed.  It is all falling into place, though.  The last 8 months of planning will culminate into me and Brian being married, and, in the end, THAT is the whole point. 

It can be easy to forget at times, and easy to get wrapped up in the superficial parts of the process.

I imagine that every woman wants to be beautiful on their wedding day.  No matter how society advances and no matter how un-traditional a woman is, I believe every woman wants to be beautiful on the day they get married.  I want to be beautiful. 

Many standards of beauty includes being thin, which I am not.  I dreaded trying on dresses, but was also longing for that exprience.

Being plus-size and searching for a wedding dress presents a few challenges.  Many dresses I tried on were made to show off the large woman’s breasts.  I understand why, but I was not interested in wearing a foot of cleavage when I get married. I found that if the dress was not spilling my breasts out in front of me, then it was enveloping me in loose flowy fabric.  Maybe for those big women who want to hide their bodies.   It was also challenging to find much selection.  I went to 4 places in the valley that claimed to have sizes 14 and up.  What I discovered was, out of hundreds of dresses from their entire store they had maybe 5 dresses that were in that size range.  

I wondered if I was doomed to wear an Ursala-the-Sea-Witch-bursting-forth-from-the-bosom-of-her-disguise dress.  (A reference to the Disney film.  Seriously obscene moment in The Little Mermaid) Or, I would end up looking like I draped myself in gigantic doily with angel wing sleeves.  Eventually I found a dress that I thought encompassed everything I wanted (with a few tweaks needed) and I bought it. 

Do you know how much wedding dresses cost?!   Did you also know that large people have to pay more for clothing, in general?! 

I digress.

Back to the dress.

 I found a lady who does dress alterations.  She came highly recommended.  As I stood looking at myself in her trifecta of mirrors surrounding me, I had all the chance in the world to hate my body.  My hips were too wide and the dress would not slide down exactly where it was supposed to be.  The sleeves were too tight around my upper-arms.  The dress fit like a glove around my ribcage and waist.  It was barely long enough in my bare feet.  I could have hated my body, right then.  I could have said; “Never mind, I will exchange this dress for the winged doily” or “Forget it! I do not deserve to get married to a man who loves me.  I am not perfect enough.”  BUT then…the fifty-something, long-fingered, pinch-lipped seamstress did something.  She patted me on my right hip, and said “Someone needs to start walking,”

I laughed at her little joke, as did my mother who was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.  I suppose that is what this lady thought when she looked at me. 

 I looked at myself in the mirror again and saw what my Fiancé might see when he looks at me, and tells me I am beautiful and desirous and sexy.  I saw a statuesque woman who had a prescence not like any one else, who wore a stunning white dress which accentuated her curvy body, and who was not afraid to be exactly who she was on her wedding day.  I saw, just me, and I loved it.

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.