looking up

There are a lot of things wrong with the world. On a much smaller level, there are many things about our life right now that I would change, had I the power to do it. James would have a job -- preferably one that brought in a decent income and didn't drive him nuts (ooh, and that has good benefits). The price of oil would be up and the wells in which we're invested would be top producers. My baby wouldn't have a heart defect.

As hopeful as I am about each of these things, as much blessing as I've experienced in the course of things being exactly as they are, I still have my moments where I just want to wave a magic "fix it" stick and have it all be better the way I want it.

I had a very honest moment with Jesus today in which I told Him just that. That sometimes I'm tired of it and just want a break. That as glad as I am that what we're going through means He's loving us and disciplining us toward holiness, sometimes I just wish it could all be the way I want it to be -- in truth, even though the reality of it completely disgusts me -- a little like a gospel of prosperity: if you love Jesus and obey Him, He will give you health and wealth and the American dream to boot!

I know it doesn't work that way. And on many levels, I'm deeply and profoundly thankful that it doesn't.

These thoughts got me to wondering: say things really did turn out the way I wanted. Say Ewan was miraculously healed (or, the doctors said, "Oops, sorry, we had the wrong baby!"), James had the perfect job, and everything was peachy. Say everything in my life had been this way: no challenge, no troubles, no resistance. What would I be like? Would I have any depth or strength or character? Would I care about the things I care about? Would I even be me?

I have a strong suspicion that without any kind of resistance in my life, without trials, hardships, whatever you will call them -- I would be vapid and shallow, disinterested and entirely uninteresting. I couldn't relate to anyone. I just might be the kind of person, who when she heard the poor had run out of bread to eat would say: "Then let them eat cake!" (which, by the way, Marie Antoinette didn't really say either).

What's true of our bodies is true of our spirits, our souls, our whole persons as well: strength is built when an opposing force is resisted. I've written about this before. Just like strength of body, strength of spirit doesn't "just happen" either. Someone who lounges on the sofa eating Doritos all day cannot expect to have a toned and muscled body, and neither can a spiritual couch potato expect to be a saint, or to achieve the holiness Christ desires for us. Previously, I wrote this:

Make no mistake: getting stronger hurts. It is a slow process. If we look at this from a physiological point of view again, getting stronger requires that we deliberately engage our muscles against the weight we are lifting. It requires that we repeat the motion of lifting or pressing, engaging our muscles repeatedly to the point of fatigue. In so doing, muscle fibers are broken down ... In the days of rest that follow, the fibers are built back up, stronger than they were before. And we do it again and again.

Ouch. Yeah. Good reminder to myself.

The funny thing about all this is is that when I write, I tend to put the stronger stuff out there: the things that I can reason and know, sometimes at the expense of what I actually feel. But the truth is, oftentimes they butt up against each other, like two boxers with gloves braced, and I wonder if one reality might punch the lights out of the other. And sometimes I get stuck between them, feeling the push and pull from both sides.

This is when I need to be reminded to look up: look up to our High Priest -- the one Who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, the one Who was tested just as we are. This is when I need to be reminded what it's all for. I need to remember that if I'm to run a good race, I will get tripped up if I spend too much time looking down at my feet, or veer off course if too much time is spent looking over my shoulder. I need to look up. And when I tire, wishing I could know what and how and when -- this is when I need to remember that I will never know what and how and when (maybe not even in retrospect), but I do know Who.

Jesus. One foot in front of the other, breathing His name with every step.

photo taken by james // processing by me

in which she shares random thoughts on her first pregnancy

Today is the six week mark. I'm walking through experiences millions of women have experienced over the course of thousands of years. I know I have nothing new to add to the conversation, but now it is personal and so of course, I have some thoughts which may amount to a sum total of little to no value. If you're curious, feel free to read on.

Random Thought #1
I thought I got a lot of unsolicited advice when I was getting married. The volume of advice I've received over the past two weeks leaves my piddly little pile of wedding advice in the dust.

Random Thought #2
Though unsolicited, most of this advice is useful and welcome. I don't have a clue what I'm doing.

Random Thought #3
I had no idea I would see certain physical changes so rapidly. I don't need stretchy pants yet, but I will almost certainly need a new bra soon.

Random Thought #4
Hello, information overload. There are approximately one gazillion books out there on pregnancy and birthing. Though I haven't seen even a small percentage of them, I'm also convinced that there are approximately 4.5 gazillion websites on the same topic, with the added bonus of member forums. This is interesting (as in, never heard of that before!), aggravating (as in, those symptoms could be soooo many other things), and sometimes entertaining (as in, no comment).

Random Thought #5
I never in a million years would have thought it was possible to find coffee and/or wine repulsive. Before I became pregnant, I was actually worried about giving them up and how difficult it would be. But it's true: those things sound gross to me and it makes my neurons fry a little to see it written out in black and white. Just the thought of either kind of activates my gag reflex a little. Eww.

Random Thought #6
Morning sickness is a good sign, apparently. Today I read: "Studies show that women with morning sickness are less likely to miscarry or deliver prematurely." I will try and remember that the next several mornings as I direct all the powers of my will toward making sure my breakfast does not make a northward journey.

Random Thought #7
I never thought it was possible to sleep this much. I've never been much of a napper, and I've never been able to sleep in the car ... until now, at least. Case in point, last Friday. We drove to Bellingham to visit my family for the weekend. I slept (I mean, I really slept) in the car for an hour on the way. After we got there, I had another half hour nap. After dinner, another two hours. And then ten hours of sleep that night. Holy moly, I am a world-champion sleeper!!

Random Thought #8
This one, a bit more serious. It's hard not to think about abortion at this point and all the little ones who don't see the light of day. I don't want to get political and the purpose is not to incite debate. I certainly do not judge anyone in this regard. But I do have some rather personal thoughts on the matter and since it's my blog, I am going to share them.

This is what I know: Little Bean (at just 6 weeks) has a beating heart and though miniature, an entirely functional circulatory system. S/he has a brain and nervous system and this week, is sensible enough to be able to respond to stimuli. S/he has unique DNA. In other words, the wee embryo that some might refer to as a blob of tissue has a heart, a brain, a nervous system. These things aren't mine, that much is clear to me (believe me, I'm not any smarter even though I have another brain inside me). I am a steward and a host to this wee soul, to this growing, developing, and entirely vulnerable little body. And I want to be a good one.

I love you, Little Bean.

sometimes, you will have no idea what you are doing

Me doing my Help-Portrait thang

The Aloha Inn, Seattle
20 December 2009
Photo Credit: orionlee

That describes my experience on Sunday at the Help-Portrait event at which I volunteered at The Aloha Inn in Seattle, a transitional housing facility for individuals seeking to make their way out of homelessness. I was totally on board when I heard about Help-Portrait, which I saw as a chance to meld my burgeoning love of photography with a desire also to be of service to the homeless.

Help-Portrait is the brain/heart-child of Jeremy Cowart, a professional photographer who has photographed oodles and oodles of famous people; you've probably seen plenty of his work without even knowing it. I found out about Help Portrait when I read this entry on Donald Miller's blog in early September. The idea was simple: take portraits of and give prints of them to people who would otherwise not have the opportunity to have a decent portrait taken. No minimum skill level, no fancy camera equipment or skills needed. Just as willingness to show up and a heart to give.

So like I said: I was totally on board. I just had no idea I'd be such a fish out of water, complete with desperate flopping, dramatic flailing in search of a safe pool, and feeling all slimy, slippery, and scaly to boot (hopefully not the smelly part; the team could probably best speak to that point).

Since we've been married, I've joined with James in his passion for serving the homeless, and so this was too perfect an opportunity. But for someone who has been happily clicking away with her DSLR without really knowing what she was doing, I felt like I was thrown into the deep end when I (gulp) volunteered to be the portrait photographer and (double-gulp) somehow ended up at the last minute as the event coordinator. Luckily a lot of groundwork had been laid by others who held their events earlier in the month (the "official" Help-Portrait day was December 12), but until we got there and the event started, I was insanely tense and nervous about my roles for the day.

The lovely Denise, our roaming photographer
Taken with Blackberry camera phone

There is a part of me that would like to say that it all went off without a hitch -- that was a natural behind the camera, that I was a pro at drawing my more reluctant subjects out of their shells. I adjusted my camera settings with ease and kept everything moving along smoothly. This was so clearly not the case.

I had no idea how to set up the lights or where to put the backdrop. The white balance on my camera -- how do I adjust that again? What mode should I shoot in? Why do my test shots look so washed out? How do you find suitable poses for people? What type of memory card do I have? And how in the world (pray tell) have I been taking pictures this long without knowing these things?

These are all things I fumbled through awkwardly, and not without quite a bit of help. Other volunteers helped me with my settings and my white balance, with suggestions and ideas. James moved the backdrop to a better location. Sam happily cropped and processed photos all by himself. Annie coaxed smiles and confident postures from our subjects. All were warm and wonderful people. Instead of feeling like an idiot, I felt like I was being helped myself. I was doubly inspired by the brave and healing souls who were the subjects of our photographs.

I have a lot to learn when it comes to photography. I am living proof that it's shockingly easy to take beautiful pictures with a DSLR without knowing half of what the darn thing (the "darn thing" being the camera) can do. In the meantime, it's good to know that there are those who can make up for what I lack and who are more than willing to share their expertise without condescension. And for those times when I don't have a clue what I am doing, maybe I will remember that even then, me having it together is not the point.

Sometimes, I will have absolutely no idea what I am doing. And somehow even then, it will be okay.


NOTE: I would love to share some of the portraits with you that were taken at the event. Most of our subjects (understandably) signed forms affirming that they would like their privacy protected and not have their photos posted in any public forum. There were a few brave souls, however, that said they would love to have their images shared. Once processed, I'll happily share those portraits!!

because he was right

As most of you who have been reading this blog for any length of time know, I'm pretty excited about photography. I would love it if this could become a way of bringing in some income. Toward that end, I recently started posting my work to RedBubble, an online community where artists can share their work, receive feedback from other artists, and sell their pieces through a variety of media.

I didn't go in naively expecting that in joining RedBubble, I'd find myself with more money than I knew what to do with (though I would not have objected were this the case). I was spoiled when, in my very first upload to the site, one of my pieces was featured and got a lot of attention (408 views and 8 favoritings at last check). It hasn't been quite that easy since. I upload photos that I think are fabulous, but the number of views these pieces garner doesn't reflect that the RedBubble community holds the same opinion.

Sigh. Harumph.

James has long maintained (not without some bias, I think) that I should work on perfecting the art of self-portraiture and share it with the world. You're the most beautiful thing they're going to see, he says. I admit I rolled my eyes in response to this at least once. I like self-portraits, but isn't that a little narcissistic to ask people to view and potentially buy them? But I agreed to give it a try for the first time this past weekend (with only a smidge of reluctance).

And guess who ate her words?

Yep, that would be me.

I got a text message from the man himself this morning telling me my work had been featured in a group for users of Canon DSLRs. While it's not featured on the featured page, it's still getting more attention than anything since my first upload.

Huh. Go figure.

And to think: I put a cheap department store scarf from Ireland on my head, snapped a few shots in my living room, did a bit of post-processing, and all of the sudden I'm RedBubble famous (er ... RedBubble Canon DSLR group famous, that is).

I guess I'll take that.

dream of myself

I saw myself from the outside. This is rare for me in dreams.

Thrown into a tiny room with no windows in a building that was a prison, I lay in a pulpy heap on the floor. I was bruised, I was cut; my body was naked and noticeably swollen. With what strength I had left, I wept quietly.

No longer restricting me, my bonds were thrown onto the floor next to me. My captors walked away, leaving the door wide open. I was free to go.

But I stayed.

* * *

I had this dream over a week ago, and it has managed to stay with me. I've turned it over and over and I'm fairly certain of its meaning. And because I'm still in that little room, lying on the floor, looking out an open door from the floor of a small cell, I'm not free to talk about what it means.

But we are praying like crazy: for me to be set free, to be able to walk out of that prison without once looking back.

body talk: part 7

read previous body talk posts:
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6



I think a lot about that day at the gym a couple of years ago. I think about how easy it is to get so fixated in thinking that achieving the lithe and too-lean body shape that typifies the current paradigm of beauty is worth even the most extreme cost. I talked to these women briefly but frankly about the pain I had been through, about lengthy and pointless doctor's visits, about too many prescriptions, about pain and emergency room visits and not being listened to, and about being unable to engage in my own life because of all these things. I told them about my low iron, low calcium, low adrenal gland function, low red blood cell count, and watched their lips part in mild shock. This is not the answer they were expecting.

But even after all this, I still "looked fantastic", apparently.

I went and lay down in the sauna after that and cried, for them as much as for me. After subjecting my own flesh to the starvation and torture that I did, I could not judge them. I knew what it was to examine myself closely from the side in any flat object that offered even the dullest reflection. I knew what it was to obsess over calories and garment labels and to be on the eternal quest for the next five pounds. I knew what it was never to be satisfied with what I saw, to be convinced that my personal happiness and fulfillment would be found when I couldn't find an ounce of fat on my body to pinch.

There was a time at which I would have given anything, subjected myself to any regimen to achieve the ability to fit into a size 2 pair of pants like I could on that day. Anything. There was a point at which nothing was off limits. But as I looked again in the mirror and saw empty eyes staring back at me, it was hard to imagine how I ever thought that a number on a label was worth the anything I was, at one time, so ready and willing to offer. I gladly would have taken ten or fifteen pounds from anyone if it meant I could look in the mirror and really see myself again. This time it had been an illness that had consumed me, something not wholly within my control. Before that, it had been a desire for performance, for control, for perfection according to the standards of the world around me. I wanted to hear from the voices around me: you look fantastic.

And so I knew for sure now: it did not matter to me what the world reflected back to me about my body, even if it was to shower me with accolades. I was learning to attune an ear to the voice with which my own body spoke. I learned quickly because the voice had been raised to shouting: This is not right. That is out of balance. You need more of this. You need to eliminate that. You need to stretch. You need to rest. You need help. You need to be gentle with me.

As I've shared bits of this journey with people around me throughout my life, many have asked how to help someone who is starving themselves or throwing up their meals or obsessed with achieving a size that is entirely unnatural for them. And the truth is, I don't really know. I doubt there is any one approach that would work, since any number of circumstances and wounds can bring a person to alter her lifestyle habits because depriving herself to extremes seems to be the only solution.

For me, I was ripe for the damage to which I subjected myself long before I was handed a calorie content printout in my high school biology class. Thanks in part to the splashy media images, the taunts of some junior high and high school boys, my controlling and perfectionist tendencies, and living in an environment in which I received the message that it was my performance and my achievement that gave me value, I don't know how much of a chance I stood. I had been wounded and damaged by so many things around me; I had internalized the message that I was not good enough as I was, that I was not thin enough to be considered attractive, that my value as a human being was impacted directly by my ability to measure up to the predetermined standards of performance and beauty. If I hadn't started starving myself, what else might I have done? If not an eating disorder, in all likelihood I would have found other self-destructive habits to which to subject myself.

Whatever the answer is in helping her, it is not necessarily in getting her to eat more. It is not in pointing out how you recognize how little she eats, how much she exercises, or how you've noticed she has mastered the art of moving food around on her plate to make it look like she has eaten more than she actually has. I am not sure that it is even in telling her that she is beautiful just the way she is. I am no expert in this area, but as I consider what that starving girl who was me needed, the only way I can phrase it, the only thing in the way of advice I can offer is this: love her into the truth of herself. She is bombarded with lying voices. Love her to drown out all the voices around her. She thinks she is not good enough or pretty enough unless she strives, achieves, and bends herself to the standard she sees. Love her to show her performance or size is not what speaks to or determines her worth. She sees a fat girl in the mirror when she sees herself and she hates it. Love her so as to be her mirror. Love her into the truth of herself so that she is shielded from the lies that come at her. Love her so she will love herself.

I am continuing on this journey and in so many ways, am still healing from it. I'm still in the process of discovering and internalizing the truth of who I am and what it means to love myself in a right and healthy way, to love the body I have instead of longing for one that I don't. In the course of assessing my body's changing needs, I recently returned after more than a year's absence to the practice of Bikram yoga. As I lay on the floor in savasana (corpse or resting pose) yesterday, the instructor encouraged us in our practice and in our rest. How many people are sitting at home on the couch right now, smoking a cigarette, drinking a Coke, and neglecting and even abusing themselves? You're doing so much good for your body right now. So many people hate their bodies. But you're here, you're working to your absolute best for you, and now you're engaged in total rest. It's like you're telling your body, thank you. I haven't always been good to you. But you're doing so much good for yourself right now, working to your absolute limit and then engaging in one hundred percent relaxation. It's as if you're saying, thank you, Body. You've done so much for me. Thank you for carrying me through my life.

Sweat dripping out of every pore in my body and on to the towel underneath me, it might not have been noticeable to anyone else. But I was crying. In a few seconds, the instructor had encapsulated for me what I have wanted not just to say to myself, but to say to myself and know with every fiber of my being that it was true: Thank you, Body. I haven't always been good to you. You've done so much for me. Thank you for carrying me through my life.


Postscript
Part of the reason I wanted to write this series is that I've been re-examining my relationship to my body as I prepare for marriage and for sharing it with another. In one conversation, I described recent frustrations with my health and how desperately I longed to get an advance on my resurrection body, how much for I longed for a new one that worked as it was meant to work. I felt a lump rise in my throat when he said to me, "I'll help you love the one you have."

And that's what this is about for me: learning to love the body I have -- listening, accepting, adapting, and letting go of my ideas of what "should" be. Breathing into it, engaging with it, challenging it, being gracious and kind toward it. This is all a part of loving myself in a right and healthy way, in a way no one else can do for me.

Thank you for joining me for the journey. Namaste.

body talk: part 4

read previous body talk posts:

part 1

part 2

part 3

summer 1995
(i'm at the far right)

I came to the end of my junior year of high school in June of 1995 and went straight from school into working as a counselor-in-training (CIT) at the summer camp I grew up attending. An unpaid position, being a CIT was all about service: setting tables, prepping food, washing dishes, cleaning bathrooms, cutting the occasional trail, and generally whatever manner of grunt work the leaders determined needed to be done. As a camper, I had always looked up to the summer staff and was really looking forward to the opportunity to see the working side of a place that was already so deeply entrenched in my personal history.

By this point in time, I had already earned a reputation amongst my friends for the strict dietary rules I had imposed upon myself. I limited my consumption to a total of 1,200 calories and would permit myself just 20 grams of fat on a daily basis. I never veered from this regimen. A typical school day lunch included an apple and a slice of bread with jam on it, sometimes occasionally splurging with a thin layer of peanut butter. I was expert at taking small portions at dinner, filling up on water just beforehand to ensure I felt full before I had consumed too much. These and other habits of exercise kept me at what I had determined to be an acceptable shape and size. I was staunchly vigilant about maintaining it. The nutritional and caloric content of every food that passed my lips was tattooed in my memory. Keeping a daily running tally was easy. My mind was constantly digesting these numbers.

This reputation is what earned me my camp name. What could be more antithetical to my regimen than pure fat? And so I was named for Saffola margarine.

One thing I hadn’t considered going into my CIT summer was camp food. This was going to pose a major problem for me. I hadn’t considered how the kitchen served loaves of bread at dinner with melted butter over the top. I hadn’t memorized the caloric content of tater tots and there was no way I was putting something as fattening as ranch dressing on my salad. That I didn’t know these things was a constant source of tension for me. It seemed that everything that came through the camp kitchen was swimming in oil or butter or cheese. As my rules strictly forbade these things, this was the source of some unparalleled anxiety for me.

So I ate salads without dressing. I ate raw fruits when they were available. If there were any protein sources or vegetables not swimming in butter or oil (rare from a kitchen accustomed to people eating these things only if butter or oil was an accompaniment), I’d have those. I’d have cereal with nonfat milk. And that was about it. I couldn’t eat anything else they provided. My frame had already thinned out given my year of continuously cutting back on calories. Given a caloric intake that was further diminished and spending the bulk of my days in strenuous physical activity, what pounds remained melted away quickly from my body. A pair of jeans that had fit well going into the summer soon slid up and down over my hips and thighs easily, even when fully zipped and buttoned.

While I did not object to my thinner shape, I also experienced the truth that I couldn’t sustain the physical activity the CIT position required of me without additional nutritional support and energy. So on my weekends off, I bought yogurt and bagels. I bought dried fruits in bulk. I bought things that didn’t give me anxiety and that I could eat safely. But damage had already been done. I wasn’t eliminating normally anymore. My periods had stopped completely. People started looking at me like I had escaped famine somewhere, especially when I donned a bathing suit. And they started to tell me: you are too thin. I thought they were lying, being nice. I would examine myself in the mirror from the side to see if they were telling the truth and decided that they weren’t. Five more pounds, I thought. Just five more pounds.

The summer was about one-third gone when one of the members of the leadership team came looking for me. Hey Saffola, he said. Bubba (the camp director) wants to see you. Though I knew that Bubba knew who I was, it wasn’t altogether common for a CIT to be called to the camp director’s office. All the same, I didn’t think much of it and went to see him.

I stood in the little trailer with my hands clasped in front of me and when he asked how things were going, told him I was having a good summer.

Are you okay, Saffola? he asked.

Yes, I’m fine, I said, smiling.

(Why wouldn’t I be?)

You’ve lost a lot of weight, he said.

Yeah, I agreed and I explained about the increased physical activity and the sensitive stomach that wouldn’t allow me to digest the customarily rich foods that our kitchen produced. I was used to answering these questions with ease.

Really? he asked. Is that true?

He looked at me intently, his full attention toward me. I looked at my feet. Escaping this inquiry wasn’t going to be as easy as others had been.

Yeah, I’m just trying to be healthy. Still looking at my feet.

I’m just really concerned about you. A lot of people are, you know. You’re just too thin.

There it was again.

I told him about how I had started bringing my own food, about how I knew I needed to eat more. This seemed to placate him.

Okay, Saffola. Just please take care of yourself.

His gaze was intense. Disarming, even.

Okay. I replied. I will.

And I’ll see if I can talk to Pat in the kitchen about setting aside some food that you can eat.

I thanked him and walked away, determined to maintain and hide my supposed thinness from prying eyes. I was resolved again to be invisible, every bit as much as I did in the days I carried the soft, round body that I hated. It would be just seven months later that I would receive a physical shock unlike any other, one that would call me out of hiding and force me to face myself in a way I never had before. I would have to face the disappearing girl in the mirror.


To be continued ...

body talk: part 3

Read Part 1
Read Part 2

IMPORTANT NOTE: I cannot stress enough how this is not intended to be a “how to” for someone seeking to lose weight. I now recognize the patterns described below as self-destructive and all too common for women who use extreme and unhealthy means in an attempt to achieve the cultural standard of beauty. I share these details because I think it’s important to recognize how slowly and seemingly innocently these patterns can develop, how they can snowball, and how all-consuming they can become. In order for my recovery to mean what it means, this ugly piece is vital to the totality of the story.


Those sheets of paper were magic. They were what I had never known I had always wanted.

I studied the nutritional content of bread and pasta, of cheese and fruits, of meats and sweets, of cookies and peanut butter and parmesan cheese. I studied it all. I filed these facts in my brain, cataloging them to recall them later. For those foods I didn’t know, I referred to a book on a shelf above the cookbooks in my mom’s kitchen. It had been my grandmother’s before she died and was a proverbial catalog of every food, the detailed breakdown of its nutritional content spelled out in the most finite detail. I was in heaven.

As per the project requirements, I wrote down everything I ate on a piece of paper and estimated how much I was eating. At home, I pulled out my mom’s food scale so that I could get an idea of what four ounces of turkey looked like. I visually cataloged what a teaspoon of peanut butter looked like. I measured out mayonnaise before slathering it on my turkey sandwich and was elated to learn that mustard was virtually calorie-free. I deliberately took smaller portions so I wouldn’t have to write down a large number of calories. I didn’t want my tally at the end of the week to say that I was going to gain weight. In my mind, I was already pudgy and round and soft enough and I was worried about what Mr. F would think if my tally said I would maintain my weight, or even worse, if I would gain some. I was academic about my calculations and my consumption. I was vigilant. I was a voracious for that information.

I remember tallying up my daily calorie totals for the project. My number was higher earlier in the project and by the end of the week, my daily totals were in the 1200-1300 calorie range. In my final assessment, I said that if my eating trends continued, I would lose weight. I was proud. I felt as though I deserved a medal or an achievement badge. A gold star, perhaps? I remember when he handed back our graded assignments. I saw his comment, written in his characteristic block letters, below my final assessment of the project: You don’t need to lose any weight, Kirsten. He followed it by a smiley face.

But he had no idea. My tall, lithe, athletically-built biology teacher was sweet, but in my mind, just didn’t and couldn’t understand. He couldn’t know what it was to be a teenage girl whose soft, round body had been an object of torment. He couldn’t know how out of control I had felt my whole life with my allergies and my sinus infections and getting the flu every year and a set of DNA that had predetermined such a soft and solid body as mine. He couldn’t know how much worse puberty had made these things and how desperate I was for some semblance of control. He couldn’t know how much I wanted to silence my accusers, to prove something to those who had ever made an offensive comment about my weight and my shape. In my mind, he was simply being kind. It was his job to say things like that.

Long after the project for class was over, my personal quest continued and picked up speed. It became my primary mission. The control I felt was intoxicating and liberating. I saw my body as a project, a challenge, a wild thing that had once held me captive, but now that I was equipped, that I could tame. I would look at an apple as large as my fist and recall perfectly calories, carbohydrates, fiber. A bowl of hot cereal (how much did one cup look like in my bowl?) with skim milk. I made a mental note of my sandwich: 2 slices of bread, mayonnaise (how much? I didn’t measure), cheese. I mentally made notes of which foods had the highest caloric content and made plans to reduce and finally eliminate them. I kept track of everything I swallowed, keeping a mental daily tally of calories and fat grams.

Around this same time, my mom also started exercising more, going for walks around the neighborhood. I joined her. I also sought out other forms of exercise. I would dance or jog in place in my room, getting as sweaty as I could, challenging myself to go for increasingly long intervals. I would grab the jump rope and if the weather was bad, head out to the garage. I’d plug in the old black radio and turn on the local rock station while the green rope rhythmically slapped the floor, as I jumped and skipped and kicked my legs out, imagining myself defeating every last fat cell in my body.

Clothes became looser and others began to comment on my increasingly lean shape. People began to look at me as though I was attractive. I walked down the halls more confidently, looking up instead of at my feet and the dirty white tiles below them. I smiled more. Shopping became less of a drudgery and more of a pleasure when I took smaller sizes with me to the dressing room. I would turn to the side in the mirror and take pleasure in my shrinking belly. If feeling as in control as I did was intoxicating, then the feeling of being in control and attractive and complimented was intoxicating and powerful. The feeling was like a drug and I was addicted to the euphoria it produced.

But I wasn’t done. Hmmm. They think I look good now? I thought. I will show them that I can do even better.

The growl in my stomach was already a mark of victory in my mind, a herald announcing that I was succeeding.


To be continued …

body talk: part 2

Read Part 1

easter best photo

(i'm the one in pepto pink and polka dots)
taken by dad

I was never a skinny girl. Especially as a child, I was blissfully unselfconscious about the soft, round shape of my flesh. Since it had been that way for the majority of my young memory, there was no reason to direct much thought toward it. I could swing my leg over the fence in the backyard and I could ride in the neighborhood big wheel races like nobody’s business. What else did I need?

This happy ignorance ended about the same time that I imagine it did for a lot of people: middle school, junior high, whatever you want to call it. Puberty strikes, a cruel combination of hormones and acne take over, and you are never the same again. I was especially blessed also to be dealing with some severe allergies and chronic sinus infections which left me completely lethargic most of the time. My body was stuck in limbo somewhere between childhood and adulthood in the awkwardness of puberty (otherwise known as the third circle of hell), and I had an incessantly snotty nose and itchy eyes to boot. Because clearly, adolescence isn’t mortifying and painful enough.

I realize now that everyone around me must have felt equally strange about the changes they were experiencing inside them and observing around them. At the time, it felt like I was the only one under a microscope, every miniscule aspect of my appearance magnified and occasionally used as fodder for thirteen-year-old boys to point and laugh at. These things didn’t happen frequently, but it was impossible to forget when they did. I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear, just dissolve into the dirt and cease to exist. At the time, it seemed like the best option.

And so I carried myself in such a way as to try to be invisible, to blend in. I’d wear gray sweatpants and a soft, white Washington Huskies sweatshirt at least once a week. In class, I’d bury myself in whatever subject was at hand. I’d ride home on the number thirty-nine bus and if I didn’t have a particular friend to ride with, would set my large rectangular viola case beside me, my way of warding off anyone who might find me a convenient opportunity to make themselves feel less awkward. On those days, I’d bend my knees, rest them up against the back of the seat in front of me, and settle in for the ride home.

My habits of invisibility were hard to unlearn, and so I carried them with me into high school. I continued to excel academically, making me a star to my teachers. Socially, I did my best to blend in, rising barely above the surface of my desire to be invisible. I found a few friends to each lunch with, people I felt safe with, who shared my penchant for excelling academically.

It was my sophomore year that I wound up in a biology class with Mr. F. I quickly became fascinated with the science of living systems. I could tell you all about mitochondria or the precise path blood took through the heart and the names of all the valves through which it passed. I didn’t get queasy dissecting the lamb brain, the frog, or the cow eyeball. It was a cakewalk for me. At one point in the semester, we had a unit in which we learned about nutrition. Mr. F talked about different forms of energy: carbohydrates, fat, and proteins and the calorie counts per gram. I was no less fascinated, even though this unit did not require me to wield a scalpel or handle a cow heart as large as my head.

We were given a chart given the approximate nutritional content of a variety of foods: the total calories, as well as what types of calories those were. I studied it voraciously and was thrilled to learn that we’d be tracking what we ate for a week, recording all the foods we ate and their nutritional content. At the end of that week, we’d figure out the average number of calories we consumed on a daily basis and make the determination that if our eating habits continued, whether we’d gain weight, maintain our weight, or lose it.

Given my academic discipline, I knew I could excel at this project just like I could at any other. But unlike other projects, I knew I could really make this one work to my advantage in a personal way. I knew exactly what I could do armed with this sheet of information.

body talk: part 1

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows that my body and I have been on quite a journey over the last few years (if not, this post aims at giving you a very broad retrospective). As the journey continues, I find myself revisiting and in some ways, reliving these previous experiences, turning and returning to what I’ve already learned, letting to truth drive deeper (but not always without a fight).

I’ve aimed to be as transparent as decency and the ridiculously public nature internet will allow, and it is my aim to continue to do so. The journey is one that has included periodic peaks, a whole lot of valley, and the occasional precipice over which I have frequently been tempted to throw myself. Amidst the extremes in weight loss and weight gain, digestive complications and accompanying physical pain, nutrient deficiencies, extreme fatigue, and thyroid issues that have vacillated between both hypo- and hyper- with some antibodies thrown in for variety, there were days I desperately wished to trade in this tired old body for a new and improved model. But I continually and repeatedly bumped up against the fact that I was stuck with the body I had, woefully in spite of every attempt I made to improve it. That’s how I thought of it: stuck.

I have yet to find adjectives to describe adequately what this experience was. Frustrating. You bet! Infuriating. For sure! Powerless. Certainly. Empty. Yep, that too! Betrayed. Oh, yes. Mix them all together into one large, unruly, and homogeneous lump, then amp up the volume. That's kind of what it was like.

While I am [mostly] better these days, I still have a few lingering issues that my body seems perfectly content to hang onto, but which still have me scouring the internet from time to time in a frantic search for any possible remedy I might not have yet tried. For the record, I’ve only found one remedy I’m not willing to try. If I told you what it was, I would bet my next paycheck (heck, why not the next 10 paychecks?) that you wouldn’t try it either, no matter how dire the particular ailment. As a result, I find myself toting around a few extra pounds around my midsection that I had gotten accustomed to going without.

And I’ll be honest: I don’t like it. This is where people will typically interject, But you look good! If appearance were all this was about (it is a factor for me, but not the whole story), I could probably become content with that. In my mind, however, I’m still in earnest pursuit of good health, the perfect kind of health I enjoyed all too briefly but left me a little over a year ago.

I still miss it. And frequently, the frustration at its loss becomes consuming. I’ve learned that given my appearance, most people will roll their eyes and groan if I let loose that things aren’t as I’d like them to be. Should I allow the frustration bubbling beneath my sweaty, fresh-from-the-gym surface to escape, I am almost certain to receive the requisite groan and eye-roll.

I don’t want to hear it. What are you and your little size X butt whining about, anyway?

And I understand where they’re coming from. But like many women, I also do daily battle with certain aspects of my appearance and inwardly loathe the ailments that I believe are at the root of them. I look at the other women at the gym and envy their slim arms and fuller chests, their flat bellies and the tiny waists that look as though they were carved from marble. There are times that I’m so caught up in my own battle that it baffles me utterly to realize that others might view me with similar envy. But then I look at those women and imagine saying to them: I don’t want to hear it. What are you and your little size X butt whining about, anyway? and I wonder if they have stories that are anything like mine.

I remember when I was still in the thick of the worst of my illness. I constantly felt sharp, stabbing pains in my stomach. I was in the middle of the elimination diet. I constantly had something my naturopath referred to as leaky gut, which is every bit as unpleasant as it sounds. I was fatigued no matter how much I slept, oftentimes passing out on the couch before 7 p.m. and not waking up until it was time for work the next day. I was severely anemic, had a diminished red blood cell count, and with sadly subpar adrenal gland function, felt like a zombie. My calcium and vitamin D levels were ridiculously low. And I had an underactive thyroid to boot. I was miserable.

I remember being at the gym once at this point in time (trying desperately to maintain some semblance of my normal life), coming slowly down the stairs one leaden leg at a time. I saw two women near the water fountain who were leaning in their heads toward one another, chatting animatedly and looking my way. As I made my way toward the fountain to fill by blue Nalgene bottle, I learned that I had been their topic of discussion, specifically my recent and very noticeable weight loss.

We’ve just noticed how much thinner you’ve gotten. You look fantastic! What’s your secret?

I gave them the Reader’s Digest, large-print edition version of what my weight loss “secret” was. In broad strokes, I described incessant stomach pain, constant fatigue and sluggishness, a variety of deficiencies and bodily malfunctions, and a severely restricted diet.

Oooh, that sounds awful, one of the women said. I could never go without bread or cheese!

[Pause.]

But you look fantastic!

I was concurrently profoundly disgusted and inexplicably sad. It hit me all at once: the way I had viewed skinny women, the deep wrongness of the mindset that thinness is desired at any cost, and just how much I had missed (and still miss) the point.


To be continued …

mirror self-portrait by kirsten.michelle

home

This is the week.

In a few short days, the movers will be coming and toting my belongings a hundred miles south and a bit east of here and I will be starting life in a new place. My zip code is changing, my rent is going up, and I've still got to sign up at a new gym. There is sadness in leaving, but as the time inches closer, I find myself anticipating this change, feeling expectant even. Hopeful. Wondering what might be waiting for me in this new place.

As I contemplate the change, I am also wondering what things will make this new place become home for me, as opposed to being simply a place that I live. Will it be home to me when all my things are there, when the now-empty condo space fills with the objects and memorabilia I've acquired over the years? Will new friends and roommates make it home? Or will I find home beyond the red front door: new friends, new routines, new paths to traverse on a daily basis?

Perhaps it will be some combination of all these things and others that I cannot anticipate.

So I'm asking you, my friends, because I want to know: what makes it home for you?

front door photo by kirsten.michelle

things i'll miss about bellingham #6-10

mount baker

6. Boulevard Park. This is one of my places to read, to enjoy a latte at The Woods, to walk, to talk to God, and to be. This is where, in the summer, I'll take a blanket and place it in on the grass near the water's edge and listen to the ocean waves lap against the rocks just feet from where I sit. This is where God and I have had some tearful conversations and where, more than any other place I know, I feel the space to breathe when I feel most hemmed in.

7. Views of Mount Baker. Though I know that God is not localized to any particular place, I've often thought of this mountain as the place where God lives. I can't see this without thinking of Him. On a clear day, I can see this mountain in my rearview mirror as I drive to work. Whenever I go there, I'm reminded of His grandeur and majesty. When I'm here, I find it impossible that people don't believe that there's a God and that He's so, so good. I'm awe-inspired, I'm humbled, and I'm thankful. When I can see the mountain, my heart is calmed.

8. My book club. Ana, Jessica, Marie, Beth, and I have been book-clubbing it together for a little over three years now. We're an odd mish-mash of people and though all incredibly different, we all just worked well together. We rarely agreed on what we read together, but I'm going to miss our monthly meetings: their presence, kindness, intelligence, and conversation.

9. My naturopath. A person who utilizes physicians as much as I do has come across her fair share of the ones who just don't care and has learned to hang on to the good ones. Dr. W is one of those people for whom I will gladly make the 100-mile drive to Bellingham. While I'm certain the Seattle area is chock full of fantastic naturopaths (due in large part to the presence of Bastyr University, I think), I have a good relationship with this one. He listens, he makes me laugh, and he knows my story. His partnership has been invaluable to my overall well-being and I can't imagine another like him.

10. My chiropractor. Dr. M has been my chiropractor for over eight years. After seeing him at least every other week for this period of time, he is another who knows my story, considers my health holistically, and (as I often joke with him) doubles as a good psychotherapist. He laughs even at my dumbest jokes and has such a tender heart. I appreciate so much how much care he displays for every person who walks through his door.

things i'll miss about bellingham #1-5

kaari & kirsten @ mt. baker

The closer I get to changing zip codes, the more I think of things I'm going to miss about living in this community. A hundred miles really isn't too far, but it does necessitate that will life will change a bit, so I'm taking stock of what those things are that I'm going to miss the most. Now lemme grab a tissue and we'll get started ...

1. My sis. I'm really going to miss living with my sister and getting to see her every day. Few people know me as well and manage not only to tolerate me, but actually to love me. I'm going to miss sharing dinners, tasting her amazing gluten-free confections when they're fresh from the oven, and just getting to hang out together. I'm going to miss how she'll do the dishes even when it's not her turn, but she just does it because she can tell I'm just too tired to stand. I just don't know what I'm going to do with the other half of my brain. Time to move on now, I'm about to cry ...

2. My commute. I'm really going to miss the 4-minute commute. Yep, it really takes me just four minutes to get to work in the morning. My new commute will be reasonable (15-20 minutes), but nothing like the one I've got now.

3. I heart the Co-op. I'm going to miss the Food Co-op. These are my peeps! This place really is so much more than a place to buy all my gluten-free, dairy-free, and organic groceries. This place really is a hub of the community and employs some of the best, funniest, and most compassionate people I know in this town. And I have it on good authority that they are going to miss me, too.

4. CTK Bellingham. Don't even get me started on my church (to which I also enjoy a short commute, as it is directly across the street from where I work). I cannot even contemplate leaving this place without tears beginning to flow. I don't doubt that there are fantastic churches in the greater Seattle area that I would love, but this church really is my family and you just don't go out and get a new family. I love them too much and the thought of not being there ... okay, let's just not go there. I'll be commuting. It's worth it.

5. Easy access to Mom. My mom works at a small local family-owned business that is as laid back as you'll find (this is Bellingham, after all). I'll swing by after work and walk myself right behind the counter. It's great to say hello, to chat about whatever is going on, or to get the kind of hugs that only a Mom can give. I'm really going to miss that.

a bend in the road

As a personal rule, I don't talk about my work in this space. But now, it's not just work. It is personal, and I can't discuss this without talking a bit about my job.

I learned a little over two weeks ago that my department is being relocated to our office in the greater Seattle area. You can check it on a map; it's not terribly far from where I live now -- roughly 100 miles. But it is away, nonetheless.

I was alternately frozen and shaking as they delivered the news and we were presented with a variety of options. This can't be happening. Within the first few days of hearing the news, I experienced an array of different emotions: anger, betrayal, excitement, hope, sadness, elation. One moment I was hopeful and ready to explore my options, and the next I was a puddle of tears. We learned in the change management workshop following the announcement that it was normal to zig-zag all over the emotional map. And so I gave a chance for the shock to wear off and just two days ago, made my decision official.

When friends and family initially heard the news, there were a variety of opinions expressed and solutions offered. Take the severance. Just get a new job. Time to start something new anyway. And I quickly understood that I didn't care to hear any of them -- this was my life and my decision -- one I had to make on my own.

This is not just a job for me; it's about the relationships I've developed over the past several years of working with some of the most highly-tenured and highly-skilled people in the company. I had to consider those relationships, the state of our economy, my benefits package, the job market in my current town (difficult even in healthy economic circumstances), and so on. As I considered these things, I likewise felt my heart pull toward family, church, friends, and the doctors that I have such good relationships with and whom I have come to depend upon for my physical well-being. All these things are Bellingham and home to me. And so I realized that no matter what I chose, my ship of safety was rocked. Nothing about this was going to be easy.

So here it is: I'm moving to Seattle. I'm keeping my job. And while there is still some lingering sadness over what I'll be giving up by moving, there is also excitement beginning to bubble up about those things I cannot yet see waiting for me beyond this bend.

winding tracks photo by kirsten.michelle

body coup {brokenness & redemption}

The past few weeks in this body have been difficult; the dialogue I have had with my own flesh over the past month or so hasn’t always been particularly kind or gracious, even though I wrote awhile ago about learning to bear grace in this direction.

I was so delighted to be bounding with energy that I didn’t notice at first when other things veered slowly further and further from what is healthy and considered "normal". And so one of the prices I paid for a thyroid finding its way back to balance was a malfunctioning lower digestive system. Oddly, things in this part of my body were working perfectly, humming along at a steady rhythm when I was in the place where I could barely move my limbs or lift myself out of bed in the morning.

I was patient with the dilemma at first; this is usually my way when presented with a difficulty, bodily or otherwise. My prayers are usually something like, Hi God, I’d really appreciate if You would bring healing to this area. I’m doing okay though and know You’ve got a lot going on and there’s probably something you’d like me to learn from this. So I’m just going to wait it out and learn what I can, but if you could put fixing this thing on your list of Things to Do, I’d really appreciate it.

I waited and waited. Days stretched to weeks and finally a month had passed and nothing had really changed. My lower digestive system was increasingly rebellious, staging a rather impressive coup. I was doing everything I knew to do: eating the right foods, drinking lots of water, drinking cleansing teas, taking the appropriate supplements. I was even exercising regularly again. Nothing was working; things were terrifically wrong in this area and it was starting to impact my ability to move comfortably through my days. But it was only getting worse. My concern slowly escalated.

I’d put my hand on my belly and pray for some holy magic healing touch to be conveyed through my fingers, wondering. Waiting. Please. Nothing happened.

And then finally my patience had been exceeded and I reached the point at which I began to crack; every emotion spurt out with impressive force through the fissures, knocking down anyone who was so unfortunate as to be in its path. I often reach this place after being patient for a time, waiting and waiting with my body for things to get better, but instead moving toward rightness, things venture further and further from where they should be.

I was in the shower when the tears just started coming. I was frustrated. I felt tight and uncomfortable, expanding and stretching all over. I knew this was a failure of good health. It did not help that earlier that day, I had lost a button and a clasp on pants that had fit comfortably not long before to crazy activities like getting out of my car and sitting down at my desk. I felt like the skin around my belly, thighs, arms, and chest were stretching to their outer limits. One friend kindly suggested that the pants were poorly made. Another posited they shrunk in the dryer. While I appreciated their efforts to provide alternate explanations as to why buttons and clasps were popping off my pants, I had closely watched my body puff out and swell over the previous days and weeks and knew that their suggestions while kind, were not accurate.

I desperately wanted a vacation from my own flesh, an advance on the new body waiting for me at the resurrection. I made fists and pummeled the wall of the shower. Damnit!! I asked why can’t You just fix it? Why can't things just work? Why am I always breaking? Why why why?

It is simple to assent in an intellectual kind of way that I can’t control what happens in my body, even if I follow the proverbial Rule Book of Good Health to the letter. I get this and have witnessed this devastating truth in others. I’ve known a healthy mom in her early forties take a sudden last gulp of air before dying of a massive heart attack in her bed early one morning. A co-worker of mine is battling cancer and enduring the rigors of chemotherapy for the third time in the few years since I’ve known her. And then there’s me: the regular exerciser, obsessive supplement-taker, she who loves and regularly consumes vegetables, the bearer of a body who just can’t get along with itself. None of it really makes any kind of sense. At least not in the way I'd like it to.

It is hard to explain how heartbreaking and deeply disconcerting it is: I know better than to expect any of life to be fair, but this body journey has taught me that in my heart, I still want this and to a certain degree, expect it. I don’t know whether it’s intrinsic to our design as humans or if I’m just clinging to childish notions of how the world should be. But I do know that it’s much easier to acknowledge the elementary truth that life isn’t fair when circumstances are to my liking, or when it is someone else enduring under hardship.

This is all so humbling.

So what I come to is this: regardless of how my body responds, it is a temple. There may be cracks in the wall and the paint might be peeling. I might not like what I see when I look around. But it is the space in which I am uniquely me, a sacred space inhabited by the Holy Spirit. It is my responsibility to be good to it for as long as I have it. Even so, it is slowly aging and will one day die. And more than what I do or don’t do, more than rules and notions of rightness or supplements or vitamins or vegetables, I need to cling to Him. He is the One who will redeem this fantastic mess and one day, make all things new.

photo © 2008 jen fox photography

for my body: confession # 2 {my grace is not sufficient}

Dear Body,

I wish I could make you well. I wish I could reach inside and set right the wrong things. I would soothe the sore places, infuse the tired places with new energy, destroy the dams that should never have been built. I would grab onto the good things you need and hang onto them for you until you were ready to receive them. I would mend what is ripped, I would remove those things that harm you, usher them out safely. I would give you what you craved but lacked. I would do it all.

But all I am permitted is to wait, hands tied.

You've spoken loudly in the past and while I couldn't understand what you said at first, you spoke at a decibel that could not be ignored; your sound reverberated through every cell. It took some time, but I learned how to hear and understand your words.

What I notice now is your profound silence; you speak in the tiniest whispers if at all. Perhaps you are finally hoarse with the shouting. I could not blame you. For a time I mistook this silence for wellness. Nothing was overtly wrong: no significant pain; there were no oozing sores or gaping wounds crying out for my attention. I was just tired, sapped. Sluggish. Who isn't? I was just missing cycles; hardly surprising given what you've endured these past two years.

It could have meant anything. It could have meant nothing.

But it meant something.

I went back to the naturopath, someone who trusts me and takes me seriously when I tell him: something's not right. Things are ... just ... off. Tests were ordered, blood taken. I found out how desperately you were lacking imporant vitamins, nutrition that is crucial, foundational for you. You had less than half of what you needed. Then I went back to my doctor for a regular check-up and told her some of these things too: tired. sluggish. missed cycles. More tests ordered. They took my blood again and told me the thyroid was still struggling, still slow. Still not producing enough, even after more than a year of daily remedies. Ultrasounds were ordered and revealed: polyps. cysts. Words I had heard but were never personal. Words that catch in my throat when I try to speak them.

You've been through so much; we've been through so much. I am eating well, taking my vitamins, exercising, getting sleep. I drink water, cleansing teas. I am mindful of you: listening, heeding your needs. And still, you are not well. You need things I cannot give: the ability to absorb, to produce, to release. It hurts me to know: I am not able.

My hands are tied. And so we move through the days together stilted and awkward, with a shortened step. And I wonder how long you have lacked and struggled. I wonder how -- or if -- you will ever fully recover. It makes me weep to know: it is not enough. for all my wishing and willing, I cannot make you well again.

There is nothing more I can do.

And so I will continue to do the things that lie within my abilities: I will eat well, drink water, sleep, take all the vitamins and supplements you need. I will keep listening, enlisting the support of those who are our advocates. I will put one foot in front of the other and I will breathe in and out. I will give you every good thing that lies within my power to give.

But the grace you require now is beyond my reach; the fulfillment of your needs lies beyond the boundaries of my ability. So we will sit together with hands open: able to surrender, able to receive, waiting patiently for something or for nothing: learning our limits and accepting them, and maybe learning grace yet again. Perhaps in the waiting, we will find that our hands are filled with something altogether unexpected and new.

... there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

The Apostle Paul, from the second letter to the Corinthian church

mood photo by kirsten.michelle

related post: for my body: {confession & reconciliation}

waking up

As I turn over in my bed, I silently thank God for the darkness of the predawn and for the shroud of warmth my red flannel sheets provide; they are a loose midnight skin. I stretch my limbs until they are long and stiff, imagining invisible hands gripping my wrists and ankles and pulling, leaning away with the full weight of a body. I arch my back, attempting to increase my length another inch. I hear the pop and feel the release of air from my joints; I press my heels out and hear them crack.

Sighing, I relax my body again, arms and legs going soft and slack like wet noodles. I lower my jaw and open my mouth wide to let a yawn escape my lungs, taking a full swallow of the dark morning air; a surge of sleepy breath quickly follows. I turn my head to the side and back again, testing my neck muscles. My eyelids are heavy, reluctant. I open and shut them slowly, again and again, letting them drop their heaviness one lead weight at a time. There is no hurry to wake up.

I lay back and pull the covers up close to my chin. I curl and uncurl my toes slowly. I feel the cool air tickle the insides of my nostrils as I pull it in; my chest and belly fill in response. I release those breaths I dreamed on, letting them go, feeling loose and deflated. The weights on my eyelids begin to release and I continue to open and shut them, testing their lightness.

I do not know how long I have been sleeping.

I am waking up. For a time, I felt as though I were pulled under, as though sleep loomed over me and at last swallowed me whole. The shades of indigo that held me in the night are fading, lightening imperceptibly to the color of a robin's egg. Sleep still clings to me, having settled into my bones in the night; I am beginning to inch toward waking as the iron weights around my ankles dissolve in the morning hour. Soon I will move freely again.

I will continue to yawn and stretch and test the weight of my eyelids. I will continue to breathe slowly, deliberately. I will curl and uncurl my toes and rotate my ankles. I will lengthen my arms and legs and savor the release of stiff, sleep-locked joints. I will feel blood moving to my face and fingertips and toes in a slow fizz. I will take gulping lungs full of air and feel my belly inflate. I will hold it and let the air go one breath at a time. I will do it over and over again.

The moment will come when I pull the sheets down, squeeze my abdominal muscles and sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I will rise and stand, prepare myself to join a world awake and moving. When the sleep is deep and still, waking cannot be rushed.

I am waking up.

waking up photo by kirsten.michelle

what she needed to hear

I've been remembering her. I can't say much here right now about what or why she chose not to remember. In a way, it started with declaring aloud thoughts about my body. That brought me to writing a book proposal and finally to confronting a place where memory failed me.

And then I started to wake up. Numb places came awake with sharp pinpricks of feeling. So I sat with her. I began to earn her trust, slowly. She began to speak, and I just listened. I didn't turn away. I let her cry out loud, and I cried with her. We still have yet to find the bottom of the wound.

There is more work to be done and I know that there will be tears on the path ahead. But I'm thankful that at a time when she was tender and receptive, these words crossed her path again. Words that she had heard before, but ran over her like water over a rock. And now she is like a sponge, soaking them in. Daring for the first time to believe that they are not only true, but meant for her.

that I would be good

alanis morissette

that I would be good even if I did nothing

that I would be good even if I got the thumbs down

that I would be good if I got and stayed sick

that I would be good even if I gained ten pounds

that I would be fine even if I went bankrupt

that I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth

that I would be great if I was no longer queen

that I would be grand if I was not all knowing

that I would be loved even when I numb myself

that I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
that I would be loved even when I was fuming

that I would be good even if I was clingy

that I would be good even if I lost sanity

that I would be good

whether with or without you

remembering her

I'm hitting a wall.

I've been working on my book proposal and I'm hitting a wall, but it's not what you might think. The words come freely and prolifically, except for when I try to remember her. I'm trying to plough full steam ahead and find myself bumping up against a wall of forgetting whenever I try to write about her.

Maybe that's the problem: I'm writing about her. I'm not thinking of writing about me, the thirteen-year-old who learned to cope by building walls. Disconnecting. Responding to her body's perceived betrayal by treating it like her enemy. She turned away from the body she lived in, putting up heavy barriers in the roadway of communication between herself and her flesh. At some point she said, Okay, Body. If this is how you're going to be, we're not talking anymore.

I can write freely of the ensuing bout with anorexia, about the numbness I allowed following the car accident, about the arrhythmia that held me prisoner for a time during my senior year in college. But I can't remember her. She made a deal with herself to choke off any pathways of remembering, to burn the bridges that might lead back to those painful places of being burdened with a body. I trust innately that I cannot sidestep these places or take a detour; without fully understanding why, I know that there are not any shortcuts to take if I'm going to be faithful to the story God wants to write, a story that I believe He intends to direct to a destination beyond my imagining, a place I can only describe as claiming His grace in and for the body. My body.

I remember learning a great deal about the nervous system following my car accident in 1996. I would frequently experience numbness in my face, tingling in my limbs. My neurologist explained to me that when the nerves are overstimulated, they begin to shut down, to turn themselves off. When the signals and stimulus gets to be more than they can handle, the flesh stops feeling altogether. The brain refuses to process the signals from overloaded circuits. Numbness is the result.

I think that's what I'm contending with here: a thirteen-year-old who was overloaded, ill-equipped to manage all the changes thrown at her, both from inside and from outside her body; she disconnected from those things she could not reckon with at the time. These are the very things I need help to remember.

I called my Mom this afternoon and asked her for what she remembers from that time. And that helped; I remember far more now than I did before I spoke with her. And some of her memories of that time brought fresh tears to my eyes; those numb, cold places are starting to tingle with feeling. They're waking up and for the first time in seventeen years, I'm taking notice of those sharp slivers still embedded deep in my flesh. I'm afraid to feel those things fully, to allow myself the space to fling open wide the gates to those memories.

I have a compass now, a direction; hearing these things from her helped me to get my bearings. I can begin to remember now, to take stock of my surroundings, and to continue walking, learning to trust in the grace that is now with me, and in the grace that is waiting for me in the hidden and forgotten places.

kirsten, circa 1990 {taken by dad}

for my body {confession & reconciliation}

Dear Body,

I feel as though I owe you an apology; it is long overdue, but I’m here now, hoping that it’s not too late for a little forgiveness.

Even though you are what enables me to live and to move through the world, it seems only recently that I’ve been especially aware of you. I’ve harbored nasty feelings toward you, I’ve abused you both verbally and physically, I’ve shut you up and ignored you, chained you to a pipe in the basement and padlocked the door.

I remember the first time I was shocked into an awareness of you at the age of thirteen at summer camp, when I first passed through that bloody rite of womanhood. It was a sunny Sunday morning in July. I was wearing a polka-dotted bathing suit, on my way down to the lake to go swimming and had stopped by the restroom; that’s when I noticed. I had been educated on the matter as a fifth-grader, and I knew as much about it as a twelve-year-old could, but it still came as a terrific shock to my system. I cried and cried and cried that morning in my bunk bed, my face puffy and wet, words coming out in chokes and gasps. My counselor told me this was a beautiful gift from God, that it meant I was a woman now. But her saying that made me want to scream and rip out my hair. I didn’t know why, I just hated it.

And then things really started changing: my child’s body began to change shape without my willing it, malleable as Play-Doh without my consent. My straight, hipless form bloomed outward and pulled inward in places. My lithe form began to puff out, acquiring pounds that seemed to come from nowhere. I felt as though you had betrayed me. The child’s body was something I knew and could navigate, this new thing was foreign to me and I was trapped in it. You held me hostage.

With the added pounds came the teasing and taunts of others. I drew inward and loathed this mess of flesh I was trapped in. I was powerless to escape it and so I told you things like: you’re fat and nasty. People hate you and so do I. It would be better if you were skinnier. Lose weight, damnit!

And I continued to abuse you with my words and my thoughts. I would look in the mirror and point out all your flaws, tell you to shape up, that you were no good as you were.

Finally, I had had enough and the abuse turned physical. I started memorizing food labels and adopted a plan to get you to where I thought you needed to be. I’m in control now! I’m the boss! I restricted calories and nutrition, I put increased physical demands on you. As the puffiness diminished, as pounds evaporated, the compliments poured in and I was addicted to them. I ate them instead of food and exercised even more, feeling proud of myself for starving you. I had taught myself to love the growling in my stomach, and I chased after that emptiness more and more.

Even when others said you’re getting too skinny, I thought only of how to get skinnier, of how to make sure you really knew that I was the one in charge here. You would not hold me hostage again. The goal was always that I’d strip you of five pounds and when that was achieved, it would be five pounds yet again. And eventually my periods stopped and I could pull my tiniest pair of jeans up and down, up and down while they were fully buttoned and zipped. I felt so proud. I had tamed you.

And then came February 22, 1996, a day tattooed in my memory, a day that took us both by surprise. It was my senior year of high school and I had so much going for me. That car accident changed everything. I was only a passenger, but life changed for you in the instant that the brakes locked and that hunk of metal slid at fifty miles per hour across slick wet pavement, colliding into another car.

You hurt like you had never hurt before. I took you to the chiropractor, the massage therapist, the neurologist, the physical therapist. The pain would not stop. I lived in those doctors offices and the neck brace became a regular part of my attire until I forgot what I looked like without it. I adopted a new vocabulary, one that included phrases like soft tissue, nerve damage, and it would have been better if you had broken your neck. You and I hurt so much and we both learned to go numb.

In college the pounds came back on slowly and I let them return to you a few at a time, but begrudgingly. I was too worried about academics to concern myself with making sure I maintained a vigilant watch over you, to make sure you didn’t get out of line. But this is where I learned new ways to push you, like staying awake when you pulled me toward sleep, ingesting cup after cup of cheap black coffee heavily syruped with sugar.

I skipped meals, always reasoning that a few more minutes of study were more important than giving you those things the cafeteria attempted to pass off as food. I asked you to keep going, keep moving, keep running and denied you regular fuel. And then I’d get angry with you and call you names when you got sick or tired or achey or were sapped of energy. I berated you again and again, demanding health and energy and wellness even though I gave you nothing to work with.

Then one night my heart began to rebel, racing at several hundred beats per minute, startling me from a still sleep. The episodes continued for months and no one could find out what was going on inside you. The doctors pressed you, poked you, probed you, took blood. No charts or graphs or books could explain why you did this. Nothing changed until hands were joined in a circle around me, hands put on you, and healing called down from heaven. There were no more episodes after that, and you became a testimony of something divine reaching down to earth, touching flesh.

I began to feel differently about you then.

I felt like we got healthy after college was over when I was on my own, giving you lots of vegetables and fruits and lean proteins, exercising in a healthy way, giving you what you needed to assume a healthy shape. I felt really good, and was pleased that our relationship had improved. And then a few years ago, new things started happening that no one could explain. My stomach was stabbed with pain, and my chest burned. Several rounds with several different medicines didn’t help and we had no relief. Things escalated and got worse, and I took you to the emergency room more than once.

The ache moved down my gut. I grew sluggish and tired, fell asleep too early every night. Doctors wanted to give you vicodin and anti-depressants, but I refused. I was trying to help you and I knew innately that you did not need those things. I didn’t know what you needed, but I knew that vicodin and anti-depressants weren't the answer. I sometimes felt like you were a squealing infant and I was the parent, not knowing what you needed, not knowing how to understand where you were hurting and why. I felt so helpless. We were both trapped, chained to each other in the dark.

It took awhile, but I finally found someone who could teach me how to listen to you, who helped me learn to hear the things you were saying. In the process, I discovered other parts of you that suffered quietly: blood cells, bones, thyroid, adrenals. I learned what things were hurting you and I took them away; I got supplements to provide what you lacked, to aid in healing those places you suffered most. You had been hurting so long, and the healing is still happening. I can’t imagine that either of us will be quite the same again. But we are here now in a new normal that is healing and energized and as it should be.

So my body, I’m sorry I ignored you and said unkind things. I’m sorry for having neglected and abused you. I’m sorry I hurt you and starved you and asked impossible things of you. I’m sorry for the pain you’ve suffered, that we’ve suffered together.

We are married, you and I, and we are still learning to speak to one another, to listen with attentive ears, still learning how to move in this dance we do together. We were knit together inside my mother and we are inseparable, you and I. My mind and heart and soul are fused with you. You are how I hug my sister, talk to my friend, how I laugh and smile. You are how I dance with joy, cry out loud, and how I can write any of this down at all.

You are the first place to which I extend the most basic kindnesses and grace: food, water, rest, exercise. I marvel at your abilities to lift, stretch, bend, heal, and grow strong. You are good from your beginnings, and I am learning to honor the goodness that has been there since the moment you took form.

So I guess what I’m trying to say, body of mine, is that I’m not perfect. I wish I could promise you that I would be good to you always, that I would never transgress against you again. That I would never wish you were shaped differently, or that you weren’t sensitive to certain foods, or that you didn’t have the limits that you do. But you are the only body I have and I’m beginning to learn that you are utterly marvelous and within those limits, capable of so much.

And so I will continue on this path of learning to be good to you: to provide what you need, not demand what you cannot give, to cooperate with you; to listen to you and respond appropriately to the things you say; to give you compassion. And I’m learning that in return, you give me the ability to embody fully the life I’ve been given, to give my own unique shape to love, sadness, happiness, friendship, and faith.

I guess what I’m saying is that I have your back, good body of mine, and that I know you have mine; that we will learn this dance together, giving one another grace for the journey.

confession photo by kirsten.michelle

Linkage love {check out links to this post}:

pain in the neck (and back) by betsy

there's something about belonging by miriam