80 MILLION POUNDS?!?
For the two weeks after I heard this figure I have wanted to write about the excess, the world economy, severe weather and hungry children. What's come to mind and memory today is a far different story.
In the very early 1980s I was what you'd call today a tween. While my younger brother, my cousin and her friends were outside on a gorgeous June day playing street soccer and other childhood games, I was curled up in a comfortable arm chair with a wonderful book (likely Little Women or one of the Anne series) watching the first royal wedding.
The pageantry, the visual beauty and the dreams of a romantic 12 year old combined in a force that kept me glued to that chair and my aunt's TV. I had the luxury of little distraction and no competition for the dial (yes, it's true. No remote). My aunt worried about me and asked me a few time if I wouldn't rather be outside but bless her, mostly let me be. The truth is I never did miss out on any "fun." I've never been fond of sports. I could tell you I have miserably bad eyesight (I do), but truthfully I was the timid kid who was always picked last, the one who was teased "She's afraid of the ball!" Indeed.
While I've never been an excessive frills, dripping lace Jane Austen or bodice-ripper romance kind of girl, and at 12 this was long past my dresses-only phase, my memories of this day were of being perfectly content, the little Anglo-phile in me also satisfied (this too has passed although my favorite subjects remain English and history). I spent the day without siblings, chores or homework. I watched history and happiness unfold (sorry, Charles and Diana).
Today I chose not to watch. Not in protest of the financial excess, more because the event really doesn't matter much to me this time around, although I later found out my cousin was in Hyde Park. I wouldn't have seen her, but it would have been fun to look. I did turn the TV on for 5 minutes prior to getting ready for work. Lo and behold, there was a tear in my eye. I think it was for the ebullient happiness of this generation's princess. It was also for, although the fairy tale on TV didn't end happily for the princess of 1981, once upon a time there was a content little girl. Ahh, nostalgia.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Leaping Fearlessly
Disclaimer: When I set up my blog, it was this post I wanted to write, these thoughts and many more that led me to think about "Leaping Fearlessly" into my own life.
Most of the women I know have an entrenched love-hate relationship with not just their bodies, but with their very selves.
The "love-hate" phrase is such a cliché, though it's useful here. We who hate our skin, hair, waistline and thighs as well as endless aspects of our own personalities usually take at least minimal loving action toward ourselves. We brush our hair until it falls the way it should, we cover the gray and we buy the clothes we think are most attractive if yet still comfortable. We take enough care (love) to go to the doctor, even if we don't always make healthful choices, and we wear our seatbelts.
The hate portion of this equation is entirely too often so much stronger, and though I've spent the last year refutting these lies (for that is what they are) of ugliness and unworthiness in my own life, those lies have only receded just a bit. We can blame the media, blame society, blame our own mothers, but when we become adults we are capable and must at some point make a decision to believe differently. Make that decision to live in unworthiness, self-loathing and bitterness, or decide to embrace that which you could be, who you already are.
On an airplane last July, I read an article in a "mature women's" magazine and had a bit of an epiphany. Photography speaks to me, and I dabble in it myself, and as I read and looked at this photo essay, I began to think of my personal "hates" and ways to be more loving to myself. Those ways are still taking shape. It's a bumpy road, but I vow to continue forward, not retreat.
I link this a great deal to the spiritual growth in my life, as well as the many personal changes I've endured in my life, but those are other entries for another day.
I decided shortly after my trip to do what the women in the photo essay did: pose as a classic nude, even semi-nude. The women in the photo essay did so for a number of reasons. They had all experienced something life-changing and were asked to participate in the photo shoot and to write about how their lives and the experience of doing the shoot changed them. Breast cancer and dramatic weight change are two of the examples. While I have never experienced anything quite so dramatic, I have experienced my own life and found this a beautiful way to express love, strength, and a unique venue to speak to other women, the way it spoke to me. We ARE all beautiful and strong.
When I was thinking about the reasons I would do this, I thought about some of the things that have been said to me over the years, the ways in which it's been pointed out to me that I do have a story, that I have done things that count. Things I've pushed aside, that I am learning to hold as true. I've had four pregnancies, including one miscarriage, one traumatic birth experience and two nine pound babies. Between my three children, I've breastfed for one year. I've been a wife for nearly 20 years, a wife to a soldier in Iraq. Five years ago I had a hysterectomy (a liberating, non-cancer related event). I am legally blind in both eyes, although this is corrected by glasses. There are more, but for now I'll adress the physical, the see-able stretch marks of my life.
I have not yet found a photographer. Honestly, I've only found the courage to ask one and that arrangement fell through. Whatever your reasons, or plans, it is a leap of faith to appear nude before someone, and no less with a device to record your image. This leap requires trust, and not a little privacy.
Certainly not every woman will choose this avenue to speak of her strength or beauty. Not every woman will speak out, or act out. I'd like to believe that this act of mine will speak to my daughters, perhaps to one reader, to embrace herself with love. Will you?
Most of the women I know have an entrenched love-hate relationship with not just their bodies, but with their very selves.
The "love-hate" phrase is such a cliché, though it's useful here. We who hate our skin, hair, waistline and thighs as well as endless aspects of our own personalities usually take at least minimal loving action toward ourselves. We brush our hair until it falls the way it should, we cover the gray and we buy the clothes we think are most attractive if yet still comfortable. We take enough care (love) to go to the doctor, even if we don't always make healthful choices, and we wear our seatbelts.
The hate portion of this equation is entirely too often so much stronger, and though I've spent the last year refutting these lies (for that is what they are) of ugliness and unworthiness in my own life, those lies have only receded just a bit. We can blame the media, blame society, blame our own mothers, but when we become adults we are capable and must at some point make a decision to believe differently. Make that decision to live in unworthiness, self-loathing and bitterness, or decide to embrace that which you could be, who you already are.
On an airplane last July, I read an article in a "mature women's" magazine and had a bit of an epiphany. Photography speaks to me, and I dabble in it myself, and as I read and looked at this photo essay, I began to think of my personal "hates" and ways to be more loving to myself. Those ways are still taking shape. It's a bumpy road, but I vow to continue forward, not retreat.
I link this a great deal to the spiritual growth in my life, as well as the many personal changes I've endured in my life, but those are other entries for another day.
I decided shortly after my trip to do what the women in the photo essay did: pose as a classic nude, even semi-nude. The women in the photo essay did so for a number of reasons. They had all experienced something life-changing and were asked to participate in the photo shoot and to write about how their lives and the experience of doing the shoot changed them. Breast cancer and dramatic weight change are two of the examples. While I have never experienced anything quite so dramatic, I have experienced my own life and found this a beautiful way to express love, strength, and a unique venue to speak to other women, the way it spoke to me. We ARE all beautiful and strong.
When I was thinking about the reasons I would do this, I thought about some of the things that have been said to me over the years, the ways in which it's been pointed out to me that I do have a story, that I have done things that count. Things I've pushed aside, that I am learning to hold as true. I've had four pregnancies, including one miscarriage, one traumatic birth experience and two nine pound babies. Between my three children, I've breastfed for one year. I've been a wife for nearly 20 years, a wife to a soldier in Iraq. Five years ago I had a hysterectomy (a liberating, non-cancer related event). I am legally blind in both eyes, although this is corrected by glasses. There are more, but for now I'll adress the physical, the see-able stretch marks of my life.
I have not yet found a photographer. Honestly, I've only found the courage to ask one and that arrangement fell through. Whatever your reasons, or plans, it is a leap of faith to appear nude before someone, and no less with a device to record your image. This leap requires trust, and not a little privacy.
Certainly not every woman will choose this avenue to speak of her strength or beauty. Not every woman will speak out, or act out. I'd like to believe that this act of mine will speak to my daughters, perhaps to one reader, to embrace herself with love. Will you?
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