Returning
to the body requires facing your own weight in the world.
Think
of all the associations you have with ‘weight.’ Because I sit with the Quakers
sometimes, I hear a positive connotation in their phrase, ‘weighty elders.’ They
use that phrase to describe those with sufficient gravitas and levity, presence
and practice to have seen most all of the human condition and to have withstood
it in grace and compassion. Weighty elders. Most of my associations with 'weight' are negative though. Particularly
if placed with a possessive pronoun: my weight, her weight, his weight.
The
Americanized expansion of ‘size’ conditions this in me, from the outside, while
my own stories of shame condition it from the inside. I remember going to the
local Dairy Queen to get a mini-blizzard sometime last year. (I’m one of those
whose sweet tooth is fairly small. It allows me to enjoy a couple bites of an
ice-cream or sweet treat and be more than satisfied. Bread and pasta? Those are
my insatiables!) My husband and I sat, savoring our sweets, and noticed the
mural on the wall. It was an old photograph of a crowd of people, all ages,
gathering for the opening of an ice cream shop. The picture was blown up to
cover the entire side wall of the Dairy Queen. The year looked about
1950-something, judging by the dress and cars that were in it. Because it had
been suggested by some dear friends of ours, we looked at the mural with intention and noticed what they had, which was
quite startling. Every single person in that photo was slender or of solid
build. Not one obese person was in the entire photo, a picture of a large crowd.
Perhaps it was a statement that the shop had just opened, so no associations of stress relief had had time to be
drawn with the product to be sold there! Not one overweight person appeared, in
a random old photo of the joint. Fast forward to today, in Midwestern,
economically-challenged Ohio? It’s a rare
thing to find a slender person,
especially over the age of 30. Weight today brings immediate association of
over-eating, neglect of the body, a tone of judgment. Weight. Too much.
Overweight.
I’m
conditioned from my insides to condemn my own weight, or condemn myself for my own weight. I’ve listened
some for where this comes from. Some of it comes from my mother’s indirect and
direct narratives about her own weight. I remember a ‘cute’ story told of me
when I was probably 4 or 5. Mom came downstairs with an announcement, “I’m 145!”
Wanting to join in what appeared to be a celebration, I (apparently) asked, “Is
today your birthday?” After the howls of laughter subsided, the exchange went
into the little orange book that held all the cute and silly things my sister
and I said while growing up. But there was a collision of weight, age, and
womanhood that happened at some deep level. I learned that 145 lbs was a weight to aim for, even though I'm well over 5'10''. Some of the condemnation or shame comes from growing up
with a physician father, professionally inclined to care deeply about weight
and its relationship to health. I don't remember him ever judging my weight, but I felt a judgment, which I probably transferred on him, from whatever subconscious energies that were in the house. This energy was often imposed upon him, however, by
patients of his we would see at the local Friendly’s on Sunday lunches, after
church. “I didn’t order the sundae,” they would say, passing by our table on
the way to pay the bill at the front door. Rarely was there a “Hello” or a
communal inquiry, “How are you?”, but “I didn’t eat any ice cream” with a
nervous laugh in front of a doctor and his family. Mostly, this negativity comes from a
long-conditioned dislike and embarrassment of my abdomen, already well
represented in my blog-pages. Reclaiming this well of creative energy in my
body, in my life, I’ve found a better balance of acceptance and transformation
here. I’m getting more adept at catching my internal critic, gently thanking
her for her voice that, when shrill, did bring my attention to issues of weight
and health, but then asking her to quiet her fear while accepting my pleasure
at my build, my size, my strength, even the abundance of energy stored there
for all my needs. We are all finding a way to live together, my weighty voices
and my elder wisdom. Weighty elder, perhaps I’ll become someday.
So
how does one face one’s own weight in the world? Just that—face it. Face it,
even grow it for balance of strength and flexibility in the world. I may have
an overdeveloped enjoyment of all things bread or pasta, but I know that, and regularly check in with
myself to see how deep the addiction has gone. I don’t withhold the breads from
myself, nor do I gorge on carbohydrates, but I live with a healthy awareness of
the aimed-middle, a complex rhythm of delight and measured moderation. I did find a good running habit, to make
use of the carbohydrates too. I miss that cardio exercise in my life, so am
finding the time again to walk, perchance to jog and run.
I’m
facing my weight in a new way with the pull-up project. I’m holding my own, I
guess you could say. What does it feel like to develop strength in my upper
body, and learn to use the resources that I have, to play with my own weight?
To hold it for short periods of time, pulling against gravity to feel my own
strength developing, bit by bit?
What
I can say so far is that I’m learning a new way to be in my own body, to be
responsible for it, to care for it even as I develop more of it. In ironic
fashion for most of my mental habits with respect to my body, I’m now bulking
up weight, so I can hold this “more” of it myself. This “return to the body” is
requiring me to make more of a certain kind of it—muscle, in back, arms, core—in
order to be able to face it and consider it a strong point of myself, my being,
my way in the world. I think I’m falling in love with physical strength, not
just intellectual or spiritual strengths. Physical strength for its own sake?
No. But physical strength that allows me to be as weighty in the world as I can
withstand, can hold, can love.
