Fat Body

I started changing how I thought about being fat in my late teens. So fifty years ago. Lots of analysis. Many epiphanies. Every year I feel like I settle deeper into an authentic sense of who I am, which includes being fat. I am fat. I'm a lot of things. Fat is one of them. 

I'm surrounded by women who talk about weight loss and preference for thinness. Some of them are my age. There are days when I just feel tired. In the pool. In the dressing room. So much chatter about weight. I over heard talk about plastic surgery for arm waddle. I mean. Sigh. 

Maybe because of my age or maybe because I buried the mommie and got on some kind of mailing list, I get a lot of information abut burial planning. I think about how I want to be buried. I'd like to do it with some ethic. Cremation is hard on the environment. You can be buried in a biodegradable fabric, which means you're just compost. There are forests in the east where you can bury your ashes and there will be a bronze plague with your name om a tree. Sounds peaceful. 

The other day I got information from a group who has levels of service. They will handle everything. Or you can handle the service. The prices go down with the amount of stuff you do. The cheapest level is donating your body to medical science and then the ashes are sent to you family afterwards. In fact it is free. I had a really odd reaction to it. 

I have a scar on my right ankle from having been under the wheel of a truck. Long story. It's a pretty big scar. The surgeon cut a sort of flap to cover a hole on the side of ankle. Then took two pieces of skin from thigh to cover the opening created by the flap. It was a six hour surgery. I was on something that cut off feeling where they were working. Maybe a spinal block? And I was put under. I came up from time to time. The anesthesiologist would ask if I was OK and then put me back under. I think that might have been because of the length of the surgery. 

At one point, when I surfaced, there was a discussion happening about what a shame it was that I was so fat. I was young and had a pretty face. The anesthesiologist noticed that I was awake, gave me a look of apology and knocked me out again.  

That memory came back when I imagined medical school students cutting up my body and making fat jokes. It shook me up. 

Why? 

I'll be dead. I probably wont be there. I like the idea of medical science having a way to learn about bodies. But so far I can't get over that image. 

Most shocking of all was that I felt this way. It's like all the years of inner work wasn't enough to sustain me. I already deal with how little impact I've had in in the world in terms of how fat bodies are seen. Especially these days. 

I probably have some time to work through all of this. 

Words

I've been having a hard time reading essays and I don't know why. I love essays. They are my favorite form. Blog posts are (essentially) essays. These days I seem to need the comfort of fiction. I need to sink into a story. Having a hard time reading essays makes me sad and frustrated. It makes me feel stupid. It's like my brain is throwing a temper tantrum and I have no control. 

Into this maelstrom came the new Joan Didion: Let Me Tell You What I Mean, which I had preordered. I love Joan Didion. I love her. I guess to be precise I should say I love her writing but her writing is so ... her. I love her. I opened the book last night fearing that I wouldn't be able to take it in. I wouldn't have thought less of her I would have hated myself if that had been true. I know this all sounds disproportionate and maybe a bit unhinged. Fortunately I don't have to hate either one of us. I love the book. I am already more than half way through. It's like I'm swallowing each essay in a big gulp. 

I grew up mostly around adults. My grandparents, an uncle and an aunt took care of me in the day while the mommie was at work. In the summer I was with my paternal grandmother and two aunts. None of these people were big on baby talk. I was told I had trouble with kids my age because I had an adult tone when I spoke. I really don't know what that meant. When I was in college ( I was in my mid-forties) I spent a lot of time with two younger women who regularly commented on my "big words". I did not then and do not now know which words they were talking about but ... we were in college where I hoped my word usage wouldn't be a source of ridicule. Worse was in my MFA program when a fellow's critique of a piece I had written began with - what's with all the SAT words? The teacher and my fellow students spoke up quickly and smacked him down. He was kind of a punk who I didn't take too seriously but I later learned that another woman also felt I shouldn't use words that people might not know. "It took you out of the reading." 

I mean...

For many years I read in bed before sleep. It was the only time I had. If I came upon a word I didn't know I had to get out of bed, go into the living room and take down the rather large dictionary. Occasionally there were writers who used so many words I didn't know I slept with the dang dictionary. I remember learning the word meliorative from Didion. She was writing that she had lost any sense of it. That word stayed with me. 

These days I reach for my phone to look up a word. So easy. 

Recently I learned the word floccillation in something I read about someone's ageing parent. I'm ashamed to say I don't remember who. It describes the action of picking at ones sheets and blankets when you have a fever or extreme dementia. The mommie did it at one point. She would tug and pull at the blanket and sheet until it was bunched up and had to be straightened. I may never use the word but I'm glad to know it. In fact, given my decline in ability to remember anything I'm not sure I will remember it if I do have cause to use it. I kept the page open on my phone for quite awhile hoping that seeing it would burn into my memory. It only sort of worked. I had to look though my phone's history to find it just now. 

I have never used a word to - I dunno -show off per se. I grab onto words and keep them in my mouth. I love words and I don't understand people who don't love them. If a word takes you out of the story it's a moment for revelation. Which should be fun and joyous, right? Clearly not given the amount of scorn I've received over my life for my word usage. 

The memory problem is big. When I get my eye shot they do a mini eye exam. I was telling them I felt like my vision in my left eye might be getting worse and I needed to get to my orthopedist. I said it twice before I was corrected and the minute I was corrected I was horrified. Not by the correction but by my inability to remember optometrist. Last night I was having a conversation with a friend and couldn't remember the word impeach. I've learned two new words from Didion but I can't remember them. I'm not too worried because I think I'll reread this book as soon as I finish it. 

There are words that I hear or read and I know I will never use them in a sentence. I just won't have the need or I won't remember or I don't completely grasp the meaning. I always feel sad about it. 

Maybe the Bee Gee's said it best. - It's only words and words are all I have to take your heart away. 

Heh. 

Ophelia

 There's a painting of Ophelia in which she is lying in a river in an ornate dress, holding a flower and (according to the story) singing while she becomes submerged and drowns. I've been thinking about that painting all week while my body reacted to the antibiotics I'm taking for an infection in a cracked tooth. The tooth itself has hurt worse. Now it just aches and throbs every once in a while. All week I've been under a blanket, mostly with my eyes closed. I've been either mildly queasy or fully nauseated. Too sick to sleep. I just lay there. Not in an ornate dress. I've been in my pajamas all week. Not the same ones. We know I love pajamas and have a bunch. I'd take a shower every day and put them back on. I was not singing. No flower. I felt like I was on the surface, floating, on the verge of submerging. 

When I could keep my eyes open I watched a lot of Marvel movies. Not my usual fare but my brain wasn't processing and I found them oddly comforting. I don't love big fight scenes in which cars are flipping over but I could close my eyes during those. 

Superhero narratives follow different paths. Some come by their powers naturally (Thor, Black Widow) and some get them because something weird happens (Spiderman, the Hulk.) I like when they question their power. Banner tries to keep the Hulk suppressed. Thor is humbled when his dad (sort of) disowns him. He finds humility and his power is restored. The Avengers are always fighting with each other until an outside threat looms. I love when people come through for themselves and other people. That's what I find comforting. 

In the past I've watched Black Panther because of the representation. I've watched Dr. Strange. Benedict Cumberbatch. I've watched Wonder Woman but that's a different group. I'm never going to buy the comics (although I am tempted by the ones Ta Nehisi wrote) but some of these movies are well written, funny and better than submerging. I do love seeing Stan Lee cameos. 

I jacked up on coffee to watch the inauguration. The next day things were much worse. I took the last pill this morning and was miserable until now. Mid afternoon. Things should clear up. The tooth comes out on Wednesday. 

Tomorrow. I'll put clothes on.  

Assessment

 My birthday is in June. The middle of the year. Often on the solstice. For years, mostly during my late teen's, my twenties and maybe my early thirties, I did a critical reassessment of how I was doing on my birthday and six months later on New Years eve. The thing is - I'm not an external goal maker. I'm not trying to run in a marathon or learn French. My assessments were always internal and abstract and tortured. Lots of hand wringing. I don't remember when I stopped or if it was a conscious choice to stop. 

I usually love those end of the year round ups. But this year. 

This year. 

I mean. 

I remember in March my goddaughter was bringing my grand-godson for a visit. I had not met him. She was in New Orleans where the pandemic was already killing people that she knew. She wasn't comfortable traveling. I thought she was probably right but I was so sad. People kept asking me if I was worried about the pandemic. I wasn't. I live in a small city in the middle of a gorge. People come and go but I'm not running around and I felt like it might not get to us. Or at least not in a big way. 

Shortly after the beginning of March the sports club closed down. No swimming. I stopped going to the store. I met with friends in the garage. Masked at a distance. At some point things opened again. I went back to the pool and felt safe because I was masked and there weren't many people there. As more people came masking became an issue. One woman told me I was a fearful person. A moment I will never forget. More and more cases in the country, in Oregon and in the Hood. I stopped feeling safe about the same time I stopped having a ride. No swimming. Friends were coming into the nest. Not many. We masked up occasionally if they'd been around a lot of people. Friends shopped for me. 

I continued with yoga and my bike pedals until my knee started spasming. My activity level dropped. I read books. 

The economy dropped and scared me enough that I stopped buying books. Which turned out to be a fun thing. I have purchased and been gifted many books. Looking at my book shelves was like having my own little store. I worked through shelf after shelf. 

Then the primary and the election. All stressful and annoying. 

The demonstrations. The deaths of Black people at the hands of police. 

It feels like 2020 will slip into 2021 with not much change. There will be more surges. There will be more violence. January seems grim. Maybe even February. Maybe longer. 

I know Biden isn't great but he is better. There will be things that get better. The vaccine isn't perfect but it's hope. I feel like things will get better in many ways. There is sense of momentum. There is also a sense of irreparable damage. Having a binary metric isn't useful. 

I am something. Something like happy. If I sound reticent it's because I am worried about the damage. I'm worried about all the best effort not being enough. Happy isn't something I'm used to. Nor was it ever anything I cared much about. Internal goals. Abstract and tortured. I always reserve a part of myself in some kind of awareness of everything, everybody around me. 

Small things seem to knock me down. Almost always having to do with a sense of people not doing what they should do. A mail person doesn't take the time to find a package, which becomes obvious when another one does. I feel a desire to demand accountability. It might be my privilege showing and it's also a sense that we all need to be doing what we can. That we are in a crisis. More than one. It may also be left overs from the time of taking care of the mommie. I only know that the desire to shout why is overwhelming. I feel weepy and a bit craven. 

In my life the damage has been repairable. I sit in my warm nest. Fed. Rested. New stack of books from Christmas. Something like happy. 

No critical reassessment. 

No goals. 

Can I say happy new year? Can I use that ebullient word and feel it? In the context of all the death and all the cruelty and all the loss? Can I feel happy new year? Can I let go of assessment and just hold a moment? 

Not sure. 

But something like happy.  

 

Billie

 I was fifteen or sixteen when I learned about Billie Holiday. I'm not sure how but it was probably reading liner notes. If you never owned an album (LP) you might not know what liner notes are. Records were in paper sleeves to protect them. The sleeves often had lyrics, names of who was playing on a given record, biographical info. When I got a new album I sat for hours reading the liner notes. 

I bought a Billie Holiday album when I was still living with the mommie. I was listening to it one day when my bedroom door came flying open. The mommie was used to hearing folk, rock and roll, Motown, pop, blues coming from my room. None of which she liked. Billie was singing her music. We sang together for a few tunes. 

The mommie and I had a long standing tradition of singing together. She would be in the bath and I would be sitting on the toilet while we sang Chattanooga Choo Choo. We kept that tradition during her days of Dementia. But in those teenage years we just didn't like the same music. 

Suddenly she stood up and said something about the people she had heard sing the songs were better and walked out. I was confused and a bit stung. 

It felt like it was about race. I don't have the musical vocabulary to explain why I thought that. It had to do with the way Billie bent notes. She was not Patti Page. I liked Pattie Page. I just liked Billie ... better. I felt the music differently. 

When I interrogate the racism that lives in me it's often about absence. I grew up in White space. Black people were not in my church or school. They didn't live in my neighborhood. I saw them on buses and street cars. Black culture fascinated me. The music especially. I read Black writers. I read Baldwin although having recently reread him I don't feel like I got it. Black people were exotic. I knew about slavery although not in depth. I wanted to believe racism was in the past.  

In my twenties I spent hours in the bath tub. I had some kind of bath stuff that turned the water lime green. I went through a vodka Gimlet phase. Gimlets matched the water. I had a chair near enough to hold an ash tray and my smokes. My Gimlet. A small mirror on which a few lines of coke were drawn. And Billie on the boom box. Once a friend came by and found me passed out in the tub. He assumed suicide because he saw the razor blade I used to chop the coke. If it was suicide it was a passive act. I just wanted to get mellow and sing with Billie. 

That moment with the mommie in which we connected while singing I Cover the Waterfront and Embrace Me has been coming back to me. I know there are things packed into it.

November

I am not having the November I thought I would have. I had a nice election day. A friend brought me coffee and a breakfast sandwich to fortify me for the long day ahead. A book that I didn't expect for a few more days arrived early. Not that I could concentrate to read but it was nice to have it. A friend from Colorado called in the evening. We stayed on the phone and watched as state after state turned red. Nerve wracking. I had heard the red mirage theory so I tried to remain calm. As the days unfolded and it became clear that Biden had won. I breathed a little easier. The occupant's lies and refusal to concede are annoying but with each day it sounds more like a ridiculous drone. Two more months of it seems miserable but ... the end is nigh. 

COVID continues to be a frustrating heart ache. I have nothing to say that hasn't been said. It's a more significant drone. Over worked health care workers with minimal PPE and continuing rising numbers of deaths. My heart is always breaking. 

And. As I have said a few hundred times. I'm so glad the mommie isn't here for it. The last few Novembers have been about grief. The grief is there but ... I am really so glad she isn't here for this. 

So the month has been sad. But not as sad. 

I mean. It's a sad time. Food lines. Deaths. Political shouting fests. It's all sad. Sadness happens, 

A few years back I read an article about a woman who accidently texted a stranger thinking she was texting her grandson reminding him to be to her house for Thanksgiving dinner at 3 o'clock. A young man who got the text texted back and said she wasn't his grandmother but could he still get a plate. She said, of course. And a tradition was born. 

This year her husband died from the corona virus. And gathering for dinner is problematic with the  virus still active. The woman and her not-really-grandson got together for an early Friday night dinner. Just the two of them. 

A story like that one fills me up. Comforts me in ways I can't describe.

Only connect.

I have my own Christmas elf. She drags the boxes of stuff up from the garage and does most of the work putting things around. We've done everything but the tree. I have continued my tradition of buying a live tree. It's waiting at the garden center. After it's been my Christmas tree it will enjoy the rest of its life on the Oregon coast. A wind storm knocked down a bunch of trees where my elf has her trailer. My tree will be a new start there. 

Today I will eat a Turkey dinner from a hotel instead of cooking. The chef there is good so I'm confident. The pumpkin pecan pie will be from a local small baker. The sun has been in and out. I'll read. Maybe watch some more of the Queen's Gambit. 

Life. 

Will go on. 

Oak Street Halloween

I think I've written about this before. 

The first year I was in the nest the mommie came for a visit. She had given up traveling but she really wanted to see the nest and Hood River. She got on a plane and came out. She loved looking out the windows at the Oak Street goings on. Her only complaint was that it was hard to watch TV because Oak Street was more interesting. 

On Halloween I was about to put dinner on the table when I noticed people in the middle of the street, including children. She noticed too. I opened the door and looked up the street. It had been blocked off and families were beginning to wander about, many with costumes. In front of the shops people were sitting with bowls of candy. The ice cream shop up the street was giving away free ice cream before they closed for the year. Dinner was going to wait. The mommie was captivated. Since then it's been one of my favorite times of year. Hood River feels like a small town. 

This year it won't happen. I am overwhelmed with sadness. Which seems a little extreme. I think it's carrying the weight of all the larger sadness. The rise in COVID cases and deaths. The exhaustion of the health care workers. The stress of the election. 

It feels dysphoric to say but COVID gave me a gift. I am so glad the mommie isn't here for it. I don't know how I would have taken care of her. The news coming out of care facilities is terrifying. There is a place near by in which there were a few deaths. There had been a fall in the care giving because they couldn't get workers. Those stories hit me hard. Yesterday in the NY Times there was an article about senior facilities and the problems with care. Because of all of that it's the first time I've been able to relax into the fact of her being gone. 

Usually I start getting a little sad in November. I see the cover of a magazine with pictures of turkey dinners. I remember Thanksgiving dinners that I loved cooking. The pain in my knees makes it hard to get cereal and milk in a bowl. I won't be cooking any big dinners. The date of her death is just before Thanksgiving. I get sadder and sadder through the month. The day after Thanksgiving I'm ready to put up Christmas decoration. I'm still a little sad but Thanksgiving just feels like loss now. Once it's over I'm ready to have a holiday. 

I'm usually so caught up in Oak Street Halloween that I don't feel the sadness. This year I guess it's going to start a little early. 

I don't have the ... uh ... I dunno ... what ever it takes to buck up today. I'm trying (not entirely successfully) to stay away from the news and doom scrolling. Read my book. Take it one breath at a time.