WHEN DID MY BODY BECOME A SCIENCE PROJECT?

When I was pregnant with each of my two daughters, I felt as if I had loaned my body out to science.  Overnight, it changed shape and demanded strange food.  Buttons didn't button.  Coats wouldn't stretch far enough to keep me warm.  During the early, seasick weeks, one of the only foods I could tolerate was Campbell's tomato soup. (Does that even qualify as food?) If I had ever been in control of my body's size, shape, and general behavior, I was no longer. 

Following each birth, apart from the addition of a few (in my case, much-needed) pounds, my body resumed its former shape and behavior.  And so things remained for a couple of decades, until menopause reared its body-changing head. 

Ever since, I have been watching with fascination (sometimes bordering on horror or amusement) as my body has, once again, left my expectations behind. 

 

Here are a few examples:

 

I still have facial features, but they are getting soft, as is my belly. 

 

I haven't gained much weight, but what I have gained has settled around my middle. This is what my friend Karen calls "trunking" - the inevitable thickening around the waist that comes with age, due, in no little part to the loss of height.  (Yep, daily yoga stretches notwithstanding, I have lost over an inch.  I was 5'5 1/2," but always rounded it up to 5' 6." Now I am 5' 4 1/4" and am hanging onto that quarter inch for dear life.)

 

My hair is still stick-straight and I mostly wear it short, but now when I do try to grow it out, I have wings in the back.  I call this look “winged victory.”

 

Said hair is graying - sort of.  The gray is mostly around my ears.  I wish it would just all turn gray. When I grow it out, I have scary hanks of gray hair next to my face, backed by brown hair on the rest of my head. (No, I’m not going to color it – too lazy, and anyway hair dye turns my gray orange.)

 

Is my nose getting bigger?

My mother keeps showing up in my mirror.  Or sometimes it is my Aunt Pat. And not the youthful version of either of them . . .

 

I am not alone in being surprised by changes.  A friend recently reported that she was startled to find vertical lines along the outside edges of her eyes.  

 

 Another friend has this to say about losing height:  "I hate it.”

 

 (And why are we surprised?  Did we not think we would grow older?)

 

Here's the good news.  Karen, who is very wise, reminds me that no one is looking at us anymore.  Yep, women of our age are largely invisible.  Although this sometimes leaves me nostalgic for my youthful self, I mostly find it strangely comforting.  If no one is looking at me, I can wear and do whatever the hell I want. Of course, it would have been nice to feel this way when people were looking at me, but I am sorry to say, I was not that evolved.  

 

Now, though, as I have written about before, I have less ego involvement in my looks. (Of course, my ego hasn’t entirely shut up, but on good days it’s mostly muzzled.)  In general, my current goal vis a vis my appearance can be summed up as don't embarrass the kids.

 

It can be fun to surprise them, though.  A few years ago, I decided to wear a dress to a family brunch. (Mostly, to leave plenty of room for the food.) A granddaughter, who was four at the time, looked me up and down and said "Dama, I haven't seen you look this fancy in years."  Given her age, "in years" was easily translatable to "ever." (One of the girls couldn't say grandma and grandpa when she was a toddler, so we became dama and dapa.)

 

And if no one is looking at us anymore, this is even more true during the current pandemic.  Almost no one except my husband gets to see me without a mask and, I am happy to report, he thinks I am young and cute no matter how I present.   (And I do present badly at times.)

 

Not being looked at can be a blessing.  Last spring, while salons were closed due to the pandemic, my hair grew to a point that could only be described as Captain Kangaroo on a bad day.  For those of you too young to remember, here he is:

Happily, I did not grow a mustache.  As the pandemic drags on, my hair has again reached that alarming half-grown-out state.  This time, I am calling it my Julie-Andrews-in-The-Sound-of-Music look  – only straighter and messier. (Here's Julie - possibly looking concerned over the state of my hair . . .)

 

In any event, there are ears to tuck hair behind and baseball caps to cover growing-out woes.  So, hair is the least of it. 

 

In my last post, I wrote about Forrest Church's admonition to "want what you have." This seemed pretty reasonable as I applied it to the wonderful bounty that is my life. But, can I want this body?  I think I can. At least, most of the time. The soft belly is the result of bringing two amazing beings into the world.  The surgical scars are the result of operations, one of which saved my life, and the others of which brought me relief from pain or discomfort.  All of the changes and marks in and on my body are signs of what it took to get me here.  And it’s glad I am to be here. So, I will want what I have -- a body that has carried me this far.  

 

And I will remember that no one is looking at me, anyway.

 

 

 

 

WANT WHAT YOU HAVE: Words of Wisdom for the New Year

Want what you have.

Do what you can.

Be who you are.

-       Forrest Church

    

    On this New Year’s Day, I look forward to a rebirth of kindness and civility with the next administration, along with a waning of the pandemic.  Still, I know that things will not improve overnight, and so, as I wait to see how the next few months will unfold, I take comfort in the above words from the late Unitarian minister and theologian Forrest Church.

    

    I'm not exactly sure what these words meant to Church, who used them as his mantra, or maybe I have forgotten, as it is a number of years since I came across this quote in one of his books. I have pondered them on and off, though, and here is what they have come to mean to me.

    

    Want what you have.  These words call me to appreciation and acceptance.  Let's start with appreciation. Often, we are so busy thinking about what we don't have, what we want to acquire, that we don't appreciate what we do have. And, often, we don't appreciate someone or something until we lose them or it. Or, in the words of the old blues song, "You don't miss your water 'til your well runs dry."

    

    And, oh boy, during this pandemic, have I come to appreciate and long for what I had taken for granted.  Hugging my family and friends. Lunch indoors with a friend.  Dinner at a restaurant with my husband.  Swimming.  Walking through a store without a mask.  Going to the movies.  Traveling to visit someone dear to me.  My volunteer work with hospice patients.  In-person gatherings with my book group.  I will never take these things for granted again. 

    

    So, What do I still have that I would be loath to lose.  What is the water I would miss if my well were to run dry?  There is too much to list, but here is a start.  My husband.  My daughters and bonus sons and their families.  My friends. My health.  My home.  My garden. Hot, running water.  Central heating.  A full pantry.  Weather-appropriate clothing.  Books.  Puzzles. Writing projects.  Socially distanced walks with friends.  Noting and appreciating these things looks like "wanting what I have" to me. 

    

    And, yes, I have a lot to appreciate -- more than many, maybe more than most.  There are plenty of people who do not have all or some of what I listed above.  And who could want, for instance, homelessness, a scary diagnosis, a pandemic?  This, I think, is where acceptance comes in.  And by acceptance I do not mean resignation.  I mean not wasting energy on railing against what is, on why-me-ing.  Of course, we will have these and other reactions to awful events, but after a while, we will notice that the awful thing is still a reality, no matter how much we rail. And while we are busy railing, we are not acting. 

    

    Let me hasten to add, I am not suggesting that I am good at acceptance, just that it is something to aspire to.  Here is how the spiritual teacher Ekhart Tolle puts it:  "Accept - then act.  Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.  Always work with it, not against it.  Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy.  This will miraculously transform your whole life."

    

    Ok, so I may not be spiritually evolved enough to accept a pandemic as if I had chosen it or to make friends with injustice, but I get that accepting what is clears a path to try to do something about it.   Which brings us to the next part of Church's mantra.

    

     Do what you can.  Here is where we tackle the diagnosis, the pandemic, or whatever challenges the world presents. Church's mantra reminds me of these words from the Talmud:  "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.  Do justly, now.  Love mercy, now.  You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."  I find this so encouraging.  If I think about the enormity of the work that lies ahead to heal our nation, to bring about racial and social justice, I am paralyzed.  But if I think about one step that I can take and then another, I have the strength to move forward and do my small part.  Same goes for personal challenges.  Find an action.  Take it.  Then find another. 

    

    Be who you are.  This is the trickiest of the three lines for me.  I guess it boils down to doing what is congruent with my own values, to--following Polonius' admonition, being true to myself and avoiding being thrown off my path by the judgment of others or by shiny, distracting things.  Of course, being true to myself means knowing myself, and this has been the work of a lifetime.  I am getting closer, but the work is ongoing.    

    I think an important part of being who I am is not comparing myself with others.  This is an easy trap to fall into, the place where self-judgment gets in the way of peace. There will always be someone doing more of something or doing it better than I can.  But, this takes me back to "do what you can."  If I am doing what I can, there is hope for contentment.

    

    I will leave you with this little story that reminds me of the dangers of comparison.  Once, years ago, when my daughters were young, I left my house to take a walk.  A neighbor stopped me and said, "You work.  You have a beautiful garden.  You are a good mom. And you exercise?!  I thought for a moment, and then said, "What you don't know is that I don't cook."  She looked relieved, and I got on with my walk while my husband made dinner. 

Photo by Dmitry Schemelev on Unsplash