Looking After Yourself:

 

CHANGE THAT BODY IMAGE

 

 It’s amazing how that little voice in your head can be so ruthless, without your even noticing. The other day, when I was surveying the real estate known as my body, I heard it say, “So you’ve gained 20 pounds since you got sick. You look terrible.” I nodded in agreement. “Just how big do you plan to get?” I paused, considered, but kept quiet. “And you're looking old. You don’t look young anymore.”

That last comment went too far. The nerve of that stupid little voice!

“I’ll have you know, I'm over 40.”

Without skipping a beat, it said, “But you’re not supposed to look it!”

 

I began to take stock. I felt youthful. In spite of my poor health, life held variety and promise. When I was a child, people were old at 40. Young newlyweds dropped sports, assumed adult garb, accepted defined roles and settled into an occupation for life: perhaps the social ramifications of having endured two world wars. At midlife our generation is active, versatile and youthful.  But most of us have fallen victim to the shadow side of our improved attitude towards aging. While we’re not much different socially, vocationally and fashionably from young adults, we expect to have their body profile too. Why?

For months now I’ve been shrinking from the reflection that lumbers beside me in the plate glass store windows. And for good reason. I’ve been dressing for the size I used to be, and it’s not a pretty sight. It’s time to make friends with that shadow, and to stop committing crimes of fashion.

I got help at a garage sale. I overheard a portly woman say she needed a new wardrobe. She was ill with Lupus and had suddenly gained 50 pounds. She was out of work, had grown out of her clothes, and was now trying to make the best of it. I thought, “How awful for you! Strangers would think you’d let yourself go.” Then I wondered, “Why do I think like this? What’s wrong with a full figure?”

In ancient times, they felt differently about body size. Goddess cultures portrayed the female figure with voluptuous curves, emphasizing her fertility. They saw the undulating hills, the vast plains and the creviced riverbeds as sacred aspects of Her body. Menstruation, pregnancy and aging were viewed as sources of spiritual inspiration, linking human beings to the cosmic order. In her book “The Once and Future Goddess”, Elinor Gadon says that early worship revered all aspects of the Great Mother, “from child, to maiden, to mother, to crone.”

It’s hard for me to see my changing body shape as part of the natural order, so I helped myself by buying a full length mirror. I’m looking for a little picture of “The Venus of Willendorf”, that headless, limbless, pre-historic goddess figure with pendulous breasts and a roomy belly. I’m going to tape it on the mirror as a reminder of how things were in the past, and also as a tribute to the large ladies of history.

Body image should never have become part of our collective quest for self-improvement. Health and vitality, yes, but cosmetic trimness, no. How did slimness become as virtuous as integrity, spirituality and personal growth? But enough philosophy. It’s time to get practical.

While clothes are worldly things and perhaps hold too much importance, our culture believes they reflect who we are. They tend to dictate how others see us, and influence how we feel about ourselves. So back to the full length mirror.

One by one, I try on those favorite clothes left over from my slimmer days. I take a hard look. I sit, turn, bend over, feel them bunch and bind. They’re uncomfortable and unflattering. I’m about to toss them, but weaken. My mind's eye sees a slimmer me in them, and that nasty little voice starts to make suggestions. So I scoop them up quickly, and I stuff them into a garbage bag, ready for my favorite charity. My hatred of ironing makes it a done deal.

Now, when I’m out and about, I look for large, lusty women: I need new role models, women of substance that know how to strut their stuff. I want to be free and easy in this bigger, bolder body of mine. For now, anyway.

Because eventually, I want to never give it a second thought. I want to be like an old tree, expanding where necessary, dropping into grand decline, returning to mother earth. Contributing to the curves of her huge, marvelous shape. Becoming the very foundation of the next generation.

 

REFERENCES:

Elinor Gadon, The Once and Future Goddess; Harper & Row Publishers,

              San Francisco 1989. pg.69

 

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