The Imagination of Trees: 'I could have been really thin, if I didn't love food so much'.

Monday, 16 February 2009

'I could have been really thin, if I didn't love food so much'.

Having lost a substantial amount of weight and breathing the words 'only half a stone to go' every Monday after a year of sensible eating I have realised why I never lose that last half a stone. Everytime I breathe those words I subsequently eat like a pig. No one needs to get a degree to work this out.

I have spent the weekend gorging on lemon meringue pie, chicken in cream sauce, cheese and biscuits, nuts, chocolate cheesecake, chocolates, hand-made luxury butter, home-made fruit tea cake and probably even worse. These are foods whose sole purpose is to make us fatter. They are designed to round our hips, increase our cup size, bloat our stomachs and make our legs rub together. How I can justify the complete bewilderment every Monday morning that 'I've put it all back on again and simply cannot understand it' is anyone's guess. I am starting to think that I am afraid of the substantial cost of replacing my substantial lingerie collection with a less substantial cup size. Either this or I have convinced myself that Mr B will stop loving me if I'm skinny. Fond as he undoubtedly is of my substantial nature. Or, more likely still, I won't know what to do without the anxiety of 'needing to lose that extra half a stone'. It is quite ridiculous. I am intent upon locking myself into this discontentment.

I don't think I really am unhappy enough with my body. This is practically a crime these days. We are supposed to have 'issues with our body image'. We are also supposed to have a 'target'. This target consists of being something we are not. Then we are supposed to move the target even further away. I wasn't prepared to be happy with an easier more achievable target, namely the one I've already reached, and I can't be bothered to set another one. Originally I set myself a target, yet another stone away from this one. But it never appeared on the horizon and now I have made friends with my hips, am enjoying my over-enthusiastic breasts and don't particularly mind having a bit of a wiggle. Climbing the stairs is no longer hard work because I now walk for a couple of miles each day and this makes me feel self-righteous enough. It never occurred to me that staying at this weight and fluctuating around it would satisfy me. I didn't even once think I might grow 'cool with my BMI baby!'. Weighing the size of a small aircraft wasn't pleasant but I can now walk up a hill now without collapsing.

Someone pointed out a simple truth to me, and if he was an 'ex-friend' before he assaulted my vanity, he's a triple ex now. He suddenly said 'you've never been exactly slim'. I was a bit put out by this revelation. I was quite sure that I had been...once. But he did me a favour in the end because its absolutely true. Even as a toddler I had chubby little thighs and, though I know I will regret sharing this, my nickname was 'Pud'. On really bad days the long version was employed. Yes, I was known as 'Pudding'. This is my gift to you today. Please enjoy it.

At one time I was a very balletic character. But I was turned down by Elmhurst Ballet School because 'I wasn't the right shape'. I always assumed it was because of my rump. Or simply because I had curves that wouldn't go away. I have always longed to shop in the 'petite' section of Monsoon. I have longed to wear size 3 shoes instead of my flipper-shaped size 8 (and a half). I have always wondered what it must be like to wake up in a size 8 body instead. The odd thing is, that when I tried being a size 10 for a solitary Summer it just didn't make that much difference to anything. The down-side being that I had to buy a wardrobe-full of clothes that I wore for the same solitary season.

I don't think I'm going to worry about it anymore. I am who I am. I am no more likely to suddenly be wearing my shoe-size as a dress than I am to be wearing size 3 shoes. The problem is, I don't really want to. I am reminded of my sister-in-law who once said 'I could have been really thin, if I didn't love food so much'. She's a genius.

1 comment:

Aunty P said...: and that is just the problem - all the naughty foods are the ones that taste fantastic! If healthy food tasted like your lemon meringue pie we'd all be skinny!; 16 February 2009 at 17:59

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My original introduction

This photo was taken by my husband Graham on Iona. It is important here because it represents the way in which my Mum's death and funeral offered me healing. It marks a point at which I have decided, as she did, to be fully myself and live every moment given to me as fruitfully as I can. As part of this I wanted to start a 'new thing' and start allowing people to see more of my writing and therefore live my life more openly.
This blog is a response to the insights so many shared at Mum's funeral. I discovered there that my Mum was so much more than simply my Mum. She was never a saint, had many flaws, she could be frustrating and difficult like me. But I realise that these things were tiny when balanced next to her capacity for living and for giving. What emerged from her funeral was an image of a woman whose appetite for life and for quality of life was remarkable. She was entirely herself with everyone, whatever the cost. She gave all that she had to the people she loved, she fed us, nurtured us and showed us that every detail of every day was a blessing.
I am giving you my writing as part of the fruits of my life and person in honour of her memory and continued presence in my life. It is a risk I am now willing to take. She has given me the courage to live my life boldly.
When my Mum was dying I went to the Cathedral and imagined her saying goodbye at the side of an expanse of water. In my imagination there was a boat waiting for her to depart. In my mind I urged her to get in her boat, turn her back on us all, never look back and hope for the light on the other side of the water.
The boat story of Jesus telling terrified disciples not to be afraid in the storm and calming the waves has always been comfort to me in the storms of my life. There are so many ways of looking at the symbolic meaning of a boat.
For me this photo speaks to me about a song called 'Lord you have come to the lakeside' and in it there is a line. 'Now my boat's left on the shoreline behind me; by your side, I will seek other seas.' It is a line which kept coming to me as a friend of mine sat at her Aunt's bedside in her final hours. I sang it for her and her partner as they said their goodbyes as a prayer for them, because I knew how much they liked it. I think it began to speak to me too. When I urged my Mum to the other shore it seemed that her boat was only her own and no one could be in it with her. In her death I do feel called to 'seek other seas' as a new beginning with which to honour her departing.

Books I'm reading & books I've just read

The New Black; Mourning and Melancholia by Daniel Leader
The Time Travellers Wife
Retribution by Maureen Duffy
The Summer Book by Tove Janson
Voice Over by Celine Curiol
Perfume by Patrick Siskund
Loads of Alan Bennett's writings
Writing Home by Alan Bennett
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Salmon Fishing in The Yemen
Engelby, Sebastian Faulks
The Lolipop Shoes; Joanne Harris
The Prospect of Heaven: Musings of an Enquiring Believer, Frederick Levison
The Courage to Connect; Becoming all we Can Be, Rosemary Lain-Priestley

About my Writing

My writing tends towards the poetic, it has also been described as filmic. It is intensely personal and seeped in Christian imagery and thinking. I think it is spiritual writing in that it is rooted in the belief that there is a God and that God is very real to us in this time and place on earth. I write because it is something I am unable to live without. I write because it is healing and therapeutic. I write out of instinct and because I am by nature 'a writer'. I write for myself and for others that I know and love. I write for specific occasions and for purposes as well as for its own sake. Writing is a pleasure for me.
I write sporadicallly and as the mood takes me, it is not a disciplined exercise but something which emerges from my soul when it needs to be created. I have been astonished to find that people around me need my writing. They ask for what I have written and they ask for more. This blog is an attempt to meet that demand, not because I feel pressured to do so, but because God has given me a gift and it is begging to be used. People are asking me to us this gift fruitfully.
I think my writing is healing in its nature, it is soulful and intimate, it reaches places within us which we do not understand and it sometimes moves people to tears. It doesn't seem that writing like this is a productive or lucrative affair. It is not a 'niche market', it is not designed for profit or thought through in any sense. This approach would disable it.

The Imagination of Trees