That little body is ME! Sometime in 1946, the year I was born. I was in the vanguard – the first baby boomer year. And I was pudgy. I think of Bobby Darin singing, “You must have been a beautiful baby, you must have been a wonderful child…’cause baby, look at you now!”
Why am I writing about pudginess – besides the fact that it’s Creative Every Day’s Body-themed month? This’ll take a little backtracking, but I think I can do that. After all, I’m reading Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, which is widely held to be one of the classic books by one of the most brilliant authors, and if nothing else, Proust is a master at backtracking. It seems no amount of explanation and diversion is too much as long as you return to the original point.
I awoke and checked messages this morning. Leah had a tweet about her conversation with Goddess Leonie and she recommended her workbook and planner. Since I do everything Leah says, I bought it and it’s going to be fun to fill out. In fact, it’s going to be just what I need to focus my thinking for the year.
Next, I found I had three comments on yesterday’s blog – all from Julies! Julie Jordan Scott said (and since the blog and comments are public I don’t think I’m breaking any confidentiality stuff by quoting Julie) (and anyway, I know Julie – we haven’t had long sit-downs or that much face-time, but I feel like I KNOW her, at least the surface. There’s a lot of depth there.) so she said “It is like the shadow of my relatedness with my body is still there, but I know I am the one in control… not it. I am the one that makes the shadow move, it isn’t the shadow that makes ME move, unless I want to pretty it up or not have it appear quite so pudgy in my photos. LOL.” You can look at the post for the whole thing, but the word PUDGY lept from the page and grabbed me around the neck.
But before I could think about pudgy or if three comments from three Julies signified something I ought to be paying attention to, I wanted to print out my Goddess Workbook and Planner. My computer graciously allowed me to print 40 pages in color but refused to let me do any other work during that time except in slo-mo, so I decided to ride my bike around the lake and enjoy the beautiful 70 degree day. Winter still lurks, but what a lovely respite from fog and gloom.
How am I doing with backtracking? I’ve almost reached the point. Pudgy, pudgy. Chubby. Over-weight. Big. Fat. Obese. As I pedaled, noticed the cormorants, the coots, and a juvenile Canada goose amongst the coots, those words kept inserting themselves and I realized this is as good a time as any to discuss those words. Those of us in the Creative Every Day challenge are obviously thinking about BODY this month.
I am all of those words – pudgy, chubby, over-weight, big, fat and obese. I wasn’t always comfortable with this, but hey, it’s who I am. There’s not much use in being who I am not. But what made me this way? From my baby picture you can see that I entered the world chubby. And I stayed that way for a while. But chubby was good then – I was healthy. I “must have been a beautiful baby.”
My mom was NEVER pudgy or anywhere close to it, which is a good thing because my dad does not like fat. To this day, the first thing he comments on is a person’s appearance, although he seems to have accepted the fact that I am fat. Just the other day my sister said to him, “I know I’m gaining some weight, but you know what? I don’t care!” Or something to that effect. Dad is 91 and he has held this power of appearance over us for our entire lives. I love that my sister was declaring her independence from weight-obsession even if she is 59. It can take a long time to understand and come to terms with what our parents gave us – the good and the bad, and realize that they just did the best they could.
A lot of this came washing over me as I drove to Los Angeles a few weeks ago with my brother to attend my uncle’s funeral. My brother probably had it worse than us girls – Dad’s obsession for him was height. There’s nothing wrong with his height, but Dad talks about it still. Height and weight examples: I was telling Dad what a wonderful help Uncle Jean’s daughter-in-law was at the service and reception, and the first thing dad said was, “Has she kept the weight off?” Last week I was over with three of my grandkids, and Cooper, who is two, was eating several small cookies. Dad actually said to her, “You don’t want to eat too many cookies or you’ll gain weight.” And Dad was talking about one of the grandsons, saying, “Don’t worry, he’ll grow.”
Guess what? I wasn’t worried about any of those things! And I can only feel sadness for the overwhelming insecurities Dad must have carried his entire life if physical appearance was so critical.
But back to me. That pudgy little baby started thinning out as a toddler.
In this photo, I think I have what is termed baby fat. But “I must have been a wonderful child.”
I became a quite normal size 10 or 12 as a teenager. Looking back, I realized I was extremely attractive, but I didn’t know it then. I was always hearing about weight. When I look back at photos (and I couldn’t find any to show here!) I realize I was just fine, Dad notwithstanding.
Then I went to college. I was also going into a depression but didn’t recognize it at the time. So I doctored it at the vending machine with Paydays and Hostess Fruit Pies. My parents were worried. Mom took me to a weight doctor who put me on speed. We didn’t know then that the various colored pills he gave me to take at different times of the day were actually speed, but now we know he was a drug-dealing doctor. I wish they could have taken me to a counselor instead of a quack, but Dad had the typical “man” attitude about counseling. It was bad. It meant something might not be so simple to fix. Ignore it and deny it. And the fix was simple – lose the weight and I’d feel better. Except it was how I felt that resulted in putting the weight on! And dang it all, I really looked ok. Why couldn’t I have realized and believed that?
Not long after, I fulfilled my dream of being married and having children. Mark and I were married in September 1968, I became pregnant in October 1968, and we had our first child in July 1969. After I stopped nursing (and you can eat a whole heck of a lot while nursing and not gain weight), I forgot to stop eating. Oops!
And I began the see-saw years. Gain weight, diet, gain weight, diet.
Jumping ahead, this is what I looked like when my first granddaughter was born. I was fat. Somehow, my children and husband still loved me. My husband never ever made one single comment about my weight and he continued to love me. I think my father found that hard to believe, but it is true. I wasn’t happy with it – but it was what it was. Going back to what Julie said, the shadow was in charge of how I related to my body, not me. I wanted to relate to a different body.
By my 60th birthday, I looked a little better. I had come to some major realizations about body, which is what this reflection is all about. I was ok with my body. I had stopped dieting. Unknowingly, I began the most effective diet I ever had by telling myself I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and the heck with it. As soon as I gave myself that permission, I didn’t want so much.
Do I want my body to be pudgy? Not really, but it is (ok, it’s officially obese and the wii fit does not like my body mass index one little bit), and I have to truthfully say I don’t think about it. I do fervently wish I didn’t have the spare tire around my middle, but gravity prevails and it’s just there and it isn’t going anywhere and neither am I. In other words, if it’s a major threat to my health I’ll have some sort of surgery to remove it, but it isn’t so it’s staying right where it is – although I hate it. But I dress accordingly and it’s me. My skin looks pretty darn good and I’m convinced that the fat has kept it plumped up and prevented severe wrinkling. That or the fact that I didn’t smoke or sun. But I’m going with the fat theory.
Wow – I’ll bet Julie didn’t know her comment would lead to all this reflection on body!
So I must have been a beautiful baby, must have been a wonderful child…’cause baby, look at me now.
My husband and I don’t look so bad for 63-year-olds who have been married forty-one years. As Popeye said, “I yam what I yam.” My focus is on overall health and fitness (a life-long struggle) so my inner being can flourish. The body will come along for the ride.
So did we deal with body? Now, about that aging part...
