ho ho ho -- gag -- ho ho ho

Christmas Eve 2009

i am just an old woman

grappling with self-awareness

as pathetic as J. Alfred Prufrock

as clownish as one of the Stooges

as vapid as daytime tv



how did I let this happen?

i turned in circles

and let the years rush by

stupidly reassuring myself:



there is always time

there is always time




but until some brilliant physicist

has cracked the code of time



it is linear

it is one-way

it is old photos fading because

of their obsolete technology

it is recordings in my head

of the voices I’ll never hear again



my dad, my sister, my grandparents,

Aunt Tammie, Aunt Tantie, Aunt Neno,

Uncle Dunk, Uncle James, Uncle JD,

Uncle George, Uncle Herbert, Uncle Charlie,

Aunt Patsy, Uncle Herbert, Woodie, Aunt Margaret,

Charlene, Cindy, Mimi, Trudi, Becky



people I loved

and people who did not hear that enough from me



and how about the ones who broke my heart?

i don’t blame them – I know I was the schmuck

i loved too much, too much

it just makes that bitterness I must swallow

bigger bigger



i am just an old woman

gazing backwards over the rubble

paralyzed by the truth

stunned by my own mediocrity

the bottom line....

This was written before my gastric bypass surgery in 2005; life is a little different, but body-image and its attendant goblins do not bugger off easily.

Interesting, hmmmm?

…and so that brings us to the subject of fat.
FAT
To my surprise, this word roils the passions as much as politics or religion. Try making a statement that even hints at advocacy for fat folk and watch out. Many thin folk wax virulent on this subject. This observation has been reinforced by readers' reactions to articles in The Fray and Dear Prudie (Slate.com) and to other written material that invites readers to post their opinions.
I wonder if these thin folk who harbor so much bitter hostility toward fatties were traumatized by perhaps a fat Aunt Ethel who pinched their little buttocks with too much zeal and held them far too close to her damp and imposing bosom? Or maybe it was just some overfed bully in Sears "Huskie" jeans who tormented them on the way home from school -- some freckle-faced Neanderthal named Howard or Elwood who is today probably a pharmacist wearing trifocals.

And all those thin folk are damned sick and tired of hearing all the lame excuses we fatties proffer for our condition:

"It's genetic."
well, maybe it is a little -- but I doubt if my ancestors had Twinkies and French fries and Kung Pao Beef -- and my ancestors worked -- physically worked -- about 12 hours a day. I'd be laid out on a hospital gurney if I worked that hard.

"I have a slow metabolism."
alas, this is true. I think I could have a piece of toast every two weeks and still exist. I'd be a she-bear to be around, but I would probably be perfectly healthy. So what happened to the wiring between metabolism and appetite??? In me, there is none. Or if it is there, I have shorted it out.

“I don’t eat any more than the next person.”
yeah, if the next person is a sumo wrestler. I eat too much.

"I'm big-boned."
hon, not that big-boned.

Thin folk are right: these are just excuses. Most of us obese folk do not have a clue -- at least one we will admit to -- why we are fat. It is a complex issue, one with layers that are emotional, some that are genetic, some that are social and some that just are. Food is a comfort. Anybody who denies that food is a comfort probably has some other deep, dark secret or vice that sustains them. Food is my drug of choice, but unlike Robert Downey, Jr., who can look absolutely normal and attractive in spite of his addiction, the results of mine are instantly recognizable. And who gets the most sympathy? Not that sympathy is what I am after. What am I after? I guess I want to know why I am the way I am.
I was a colicky baby. I cried non-stop for 6 months. Bellyache was the diagnosis. Well, if your belly gets that kind of attention in the tabula rasa days, isn't it logical that filling the belly to avoid the aches would be a primitive but predictable behavior response? Plus in my mom's youth, it was generally thought that tactile contact with a baby, i.e., lots of holding and cradling, was bad for the baby. So imagine this barely developed little consciousness, gnawed by bellyache, desperately needing comfort, alone in a crib with some cheesy stuffed animal with goofy eyes. That is a rotten scenario.
But of course, we grow up, we learn to understand, we see that these elemental needs crying for satisfaction can be quieted other ways. Or do we? Do we succeed in growing up, understanding and seeing only part of the way? Is there sometimes a scrap of very powerful irrational thought still surviving in us? Did the unique dynamics at work in our infancies create yawning abysses in us that we struggle to fill however we can?
I am an intelligent woman. I want my mind to control my body. But my body has always held me prisoner. And this makes me ashamed. And when I am ashamed, I feel bad. And when I feel bad, I want to be comforted.
Pretty elemental, huh?
Thin folk, I apologize for causing you to feel disgusted when you see me. I apologize for taking up too much room, spilling over on to your side of the airline seat, for not having a more attractive frailty. I am sorry my internal organs are swathed in fat and that you find that visualization revolting -- frankly, I don't care for it much myself.
All my life I have tried to be a good person. But no matter how good I am, I am still fat. I have grown old never knowing what it is like to feel attractive -- and for a female, right or wrong, that is a big deal. Whatever I manage to accomplish is chopped off at the knees by this shortcoming. So I am going to approach this mentally. I have a new mantra. All morning long I have chanted (silently): the body obeys the mind, the body obeys the mind.

I just want to be healthy. I do not want to be some burdensome invalid. I do not want my family to despise me. I have always approached this issue emotionally, so I'm going to try to address it mentally.

the body obeys the mind

Music in my Life

when I was young – you know – really young –
the roiling liquid essence of me – that part in your young soul
that keens and leaps and shrieks for expression –
that part of me loved music.
now I am old – you know – growing older and wondering why –
and it is a rare time when music touches the small puddle
that is left inside me --
still crying for expression, but life – you know –
those annoying little nuts and bolts and screws of life –
get in the way and leave so little time, so little time.
will I fade like so many do, never singing the song,
never making the mark, never scratching my name
onto the implacable rock?
an echo of an echo diminishing in eternal canyons…

summer flew by...

and I didn't even get the laundry caught up before it was time to go back to school.

hahaha

I enrolled for 14 hours, biting the bullet and enrolling for those awful obligatory computer courses. Tell me why I must earn a piece of paper to prove to the government that I know what I've been doing for 35 years? THEN my disability insurance company let me know they had decided that they wouldn't pay for my college after all; I was considered too old to be a marketable commodity by the time I obtain a degree.

well...

So I dropped the freakin' computer classes. Why bother with that career path? I am so burned out on computers AND the hordes of fresh-faced babes/dudes being regurgitated from college computer courses who will work 18 hours a day for one-third what I make. So I guess I am not marketable after all. I'll just live to be 100 to show 'em; I may be huddled on the wharf with a begging bowl, but I can tell myself proudly that I did not allow the Establishment to manipulate me.

Anyway I am not getting any younger or richer.

Here's my treatise on body image:

wait
wait

weight...I am thinking about weight. as if that is any surprise. I was born to think about weight. I was raised to regard my body as my enemy. I was conditioned to regard sexuality and self-love as anathema. The screaming contradictions that were crammed into my head are mind-boggling now that I pull them out, one-by-one:

I must be feminine
but neutral – as in neutered, asexual --
but every inch a lady
in the Mrs. Beaver Cleaver’s mom sense of the concept.
I must eat every morsel on my plate because
somewhere ragamuffins
(with whom my mother would not even consider allowing me to play)
were starving:
little yellow, brown and black ragamuffins who – it goes without saying –
were not as good as me and were certainly not going to heaven –
but who were starving nonetheless and deserved our pity.
I must never draw attention to myself,
but I must learn to speak up in a confidently audible tone.
I must never spend time in front of a mirror,
preening and primping,
but I must always comport myself with pride.

wait
wait

Weight does seem to be the perfect answer:
the way to flee without going away.
wait
It was the perfect answer, but it blotted out the sun, in a way.
weight
but now I have perfected this body armor; it is an impenetrable fortress.
It guards me; it holds me prisoner.
It is a habit that holds a gun on me and at any moment, that gun may fire.
It has outlived its usefulness, but how to dismiss it?
like a boarder who had worn out his welcome,
like a tiresome lover,
like the old friend who has remained
absolutely the same since high school

Once someone told me how beastly it was for me to be fat,
that I was taking food from the mouths of starving millions.
That was a body blow; the catechism of my childhood,
“clean your plate because children are starving in China”
shattered into shards of disbelief.
wait
weight
On one of the few actual dates I had before my marriage,
a young man looked at me and asked “why are you fat?”
I remember being flabbergasted –
as if it was a choice, I thought.
But now I see it was a choice, made long before I could articulate
or reason my way through the contradictions and mysteries.
I do not remember how I answered;
I do remember wondering if he asked me out
just to ask me that question.
weight
wait
Now i am slippin’ and slidin’ off the slope of 55.
I have never in my life felt attractive or
comfortable in my own skin unless I am alone.
I have, in spite of all odds, experienced success and happiness.
I am considered rather brave and pretty damned smart.
But this – this weight – is my dragon.
I want to vanquish this dragon while I am still strong and able,
before the demons that the weight can unleash on me rush in
to exact their toll – as they (and the demons of cigarette addiction)
have done to my sister. I want to tell the demons
WAIT
I was obedient and the least you can do is wait
weight

mudders day

barely a blip on the radar screen of time

us

you and me

humans

mankind

(talk about an oxymoron)

that’s us

the ones with opposable thumbs

the ones who can reason

the ones who make tools

the ones who build bombs

the ones who spill oil

the ones who poison oceans:

we are barely a blip on the radar screen of time

but we will be the ones to bring this planet

to its knees

we flew to the moon

but we can’t cure cancer

we can’t cure aids

we built the pyramids

but we can’t keep the peace

van gogh painted "starry night"

and Hitler built Auschwitz

ideals i felt when i was young

seem naive and impossible

monsters walk among us

stealing children

for unspeakable cruelty

and death

men drunk on power

savage their brothers

rape their sisters

babies starve

innocents suffer

and everyone bleeds

if jesus walked this earth today

would he not weep again?

I worked in the garden early mudders day, then made guacamole and tacos. Took a nap

after I showered and drank a lovely cold Corona Light. Got my pattern making class today.

then got to work on English comp papers and term paper tomorrow. It is very hard to be

62, and in classrooms with people who have little world experience and still manage to laugh

up their sleeves at the frumpy old lady in class.

hmmmmph

cinco de mayo -- hold the tequila please

Time is the sea – tumbling blue and gray ahead of me –

I dangle a tentative toe in the froth of its edge –

the water appears to go on forever, but of course,

I know that it does not.

It comes to an end.

Do we get to choose the sort of end we want?

a quiet and wet tumbling over the edge of the world

into cloaking and numbing darkness?

(Oh yeah – that’s the one I want – as long as it is quick!)

or carried by a great, unforgiving tsunami,

full of the varied shrapnel of our lifetimes,

full of bruises and blood, kisses and hugs, love and loss –

carried and slammed against the detritus

of some desolate unfamiliar shore?

I am no longer standing at the sandy beach of the beginning.

I have survived the swells and storms, the dead calms

and the occasional sucking vortex of shock.

Am I within seeing distance of the place where there be dragons?

It is God’s little joke that I am almost 62 years old,

and while there will none of those so-called golden years,

there will undoubtedly be plenty of more years (fool’s gold maybe?),

working, saving, suffering, aching, losing loves and warmth

and capacities and skills and respect.

Will my modest little craft simply glide in innumerable little figure eights

at the edge because my tough pioneer genetic history has me trapped here until I am a doddering 95 or so?

Do we grow too old to dream? I am still full of dreams and many times

feel quite silly for it. Do I have a right to want it all?

It is God’s big joke on all us formerly arrogant and confident baby boomers

that Wall Street has driven silver spikes through our hearts

and scampered away with our money, snorting with giggles and guffaws.

Our kids are fighting wars we don’t believe in.

Our leaders are posturing buffoons

who wouldn’t know a middle-class American

if we were all clearly labeled as such.

So are we having a nice day?

Have we stopped worrying so we could be happy?

Are we patriotic enough?

Will we ruin this pretty planet?

Will the icebergs melt?

Are the people in PEOPLE really that important?

What is a celebrity anyway?

Why are we making them rich?

Don’t you wish we had saved all those old Mother Earth magazines

so we could hie ourselves up into the pristine mountains somewhere

and live simply and safely?

Me too.

I am writing a term research paper on gastric bypass and the whole "obese epidemic" brouhaha. This world is so tuned into the image our eyes behold. Believe me, the old saw "beauty is only skin-deep" is proven every week when People magazine hits the newsstands. I cannot believe the triviality that most folks have wrapped their heads around. My daughter has almost died from a botched gastric bypass and 2 subsequent surgeries.All is madness and the asylum is amok.