Body image, aerobics and me

Maybe it was the way the instructor talked.
"Come on girls, shake that ass, we don't want any cellulite on the beach!"
"If you're not in pain, you're not shaping up!"

Maybe it was the techno music, including a remix of Whitney Houston's version of "I will always love you" which sounded like a child had tinkered with a DJing program on his parents' Mac. Some things should not be remixed. Or even sung. Dolly Parton's version is much better.

Or maybe it was the locker room. I hate locker rooms. They remind me of being chosen last for gym classes and they have a horror movie vibe about them. When I open a locker, I half expect to find a severed head with a post-it on its forehead.

Anyone who knows me just a bit will eventually hear my long rants about how we are conditioned from birth to hate ourselves so we will eventually buy stuff from advertisers. Whether you are thin, fat, in between, or even on a diet, you can love your body and it will show in your confidence. Ahem, here I am ranting again. Moving on...

I had an opportunity to put my endless speechifying to the test this week, when I went to an aerobics and stretching class with a friend. I belong to a track and field club and run about four times a week, but my friend wanted us to do something fun together and I accepted. Also I'm as stiff as a poker, so a bit of stretching won't harm me.

All the girls in the class were incredibly slim, lycra-clad and glossy-haired. I felt incredibly awkward among them from the beginning. I had no trouble following the class, even though I sometimes doubt I own abdominal muscles, and I enjoyed some portions of it, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was ugly. That I took too much space.


I had this feeling all throughout my eating disorder. I'm too big! I'm too tall! No clothes will ever fit! After months of cognitive therapy, I managed to feel proud of myself. I started running. I never feel bad about myself while I run, even if I'm slow or not feeling very well. I feel free, happy, and attuned to myself.

So why did that aerobics class make me feel so terrible?

It's not the other girls. In my university, almost all the female students are affluent and very groomed, with that thin look that most people associate with French women. I am usually the biggest person in any given class, but also among the tallest. This is fine.

So what to do? I've decided to give the class another go. Maybe I was cranky. Maybe I was having a bad day.

But if it still makes me feel bad, and full of self-loathing, I will drop it. At least I won't have to stick my bottom up in the air while the instructor intones: "Come on, girls, stretch those glutes!"

Is there an uglier word than "glutes"? I hope not.

Birthday Me

I'm 24!

Wish me a happy year please, I have high hopes!

Holland for the day

The lakes, rivers and moats in Holland were almost all frozen. It's been one of the coldest winters in Europe this year. I love this picture because it reminds me so much of the time we skated here, and would then make hot chocolate with marshmallows.

I went to Amsterdam on family business Friday. It was great fun. I love Dutch houses. This is a house in a small village. The weather was pretty atrocious and my photo skills are what they are, but I hope you can see how quaint it looks.

This is the sweet shop where my mother and aunt used to go and eat Drop, which is the Dutch word for liquorice, and ice lollies, which I think you call popsicles in America. My favourites are King peppermints. I think all sweet shops should look like this.


When my sister and I were kids we would go to this playground and push each other on this swing. I missed her so much this time around, I asked my mother to take the pictures thinking of her. And yes, I've gone back to brunette.

What's up? I'm busy, looking for an internship in environmental science, writing a Masters dissertation on Quakers, planning a trip to America this Easter, getting ready to celebrate my birthday. Oh, and falling pretty heavily for someone.

Holland is home to me. Just being there for a day was enough to stop time a little. I love the flat horizon, the endless rows of houses, the growling language, the tall, tall people, the bicycles everywhere.

We all have our Heimat, that wonderful German word that describes the place we call home, not necessarily our homeland or the place we live in, but that mysterious link that sometimes bind us to a place.

My Heimat smells like King peppermint.

milkshakes and fries

It's snowing outside, and I'm reading a book about international law statutes. I'm holding a cup of hot tea between my hands, warming them, trying to concentrate. I like his desk, but I work on his dining room table, with art books and novels scattered about, and the Harrowgate Toffee I brought back for him from Cambridge. Just slam the door when you leave, he told me, before going to the movies. I like working in his flat, surrounded by his things.

I took him to his first classical concert. He overtipped the usherette, so that she moved us to wonderful seats in an empty theatre box, full centre, and we listened to Beethoven together. Then we drank lots of champagne and I forgot the entire conversation we had. I was afraid I had said something wrong, something mean, something scared, but the next morning he was there, and he hugged me. He was there.

Let's take this day by day. I said, OK. I don't know what that means, but I'm going to try. We have our own lives, our own things, and when we go out together to have dinner with friends, we never stay too close. But then he smiles at me from the other side of the room. There's a tacit convention between us: this is who I am, this is how I am. I'm not better than this. Day by day.

For my birthday we're going to have milkshakes and fries in the best milkshake place in Paris.

You're strange, he said. And it's strange how well we get along. We're very different.

I like him.

Almost Birthday

The 14th of February was never about Valentine's day for me. It's the day before my mother's birthday.

My mother is funny, irritating, loving, giving, obstinate, insane, beautiful beyond compare, sad, giggly, a card-player, an adventuress, a stay-at-home internet nerd, someone who loves Bach and Mozart and Queen and the Beatles, someone who took in my sick father after their divorce so I wouldn't have to take care of him all by myself.

My mother is amazing.

She gave me my best friend: my sister.

She taught me to stand up for myself.

Never to depend on someone else for material comfort.

To hug people, when in doubt.

She forgave my painting on the walls of my room with lipstick. And the time I cut my own hair. The time I tried to take my own life. And the time I came home with a broken heart. She always knows when my sister and I call her. She always knows how I feel and why. And when she went out to parties when J and I were little, she would leave a sugary confection on the side of our beds so we would know that she had thought of us and come to check on us before going to sleep.



Happy Birthday Mums.

I love you.

SRSLY

I'm learning that I don't have enough time ever to do all the things I want, but that it's OK, really, not to be able to do it all.

I'm learning how to play poker. First poker night today, and I'm equal parts nervous and excited. Which prop should I use to bluff??? A pair of glasses or a baseball cap? After watching some World Poker Tour footage, I'm guessing both.

I'm learning that life with my sister so far away isn't as much fun as when she's around, but then I always kinda knew that.

I'm learning that some movies should be watched late at night, when you can't sleep, because they take all sorts of strange meanings.

I'm learning that it's wonderful dating a 6'2 man, especially when I'm wearing heels and I'm 6'1.

I'm learning that Environmental Law is very interesting.

SRSLY interesting.

Photo credit: X took this a few months ago when the weather wasn't SNOW SNOW SNOW and it cracks me up. We both love stupid LOL Cats and so when we espied this fun fair sign, I just had to ham it up. Also hilarious to me is the fact that I am, as usual, eating some sort of cake.
He sent it to me a few days ago. Thanks, mate!

Fat talk

Murky waters, here, but I've been hearing a lot of annoying, misinformed and poorly worded comments on fat people lately. Cases in point:
1) Discussion with an acquaintance. She is very slim and barely 5 ft tall, and I am 5'10. She was telling me that she could only find cute clothes that fit in vintage shops since she is so petite. We shared horrible shopping experiences, and then she said: I never understand why some shops sell XXL miniskirts or sequined jackets. I mean, why would fat people emphasize their body?
What really got me was that she had just as much difficulty finding nice clothes that fit than fat women! NO empathy there.

2)Discussion with my track and field group: my coach was telling us to have a healthy diet while training, and I ruefully admitted that I eat lots and lots of candy, chocolate and consume litres of lemonade. The coach then said: Oh, as long as you don't get fat, you're OK.
Hmmmm...so health means being thin, right?

I am a recovering bulimic. I know what it means to hate your body, to treat it like crap, to punish it for existing. Did shaming myself transform me into the thin person I wanted to be? No. Yet this is what we try to accomplish with fat people, shaming them into becoming acceptable in our eyes.

The way we talk about fat, the way we treat people who are fat is disgraceful and wrong. Better people have said it much better than I could, but fat discrimination in terms of health care or travel or anything really is an infringement of human rights.

And I want to talk back.

I hate group work

Pretty self-explanatory, I think. In my uni program it is required to do a lot of group work. Probably to prepare us for the WORLD, which means the WORLD is only composed of bored people sitting at tables doodling while "listening" to the brain-storming session. I hate group work.

Now I don't mean to say I hate the groups I work with. Quite on the contrary. They are all clever and interesting people. I just hate the waffling around, the ordering of drinks, the way I have to forward emails all the time.

I wish I have some coping mechanism not to just want to blow the building during any session.

Friends with the ex

People around me are breaking up. It's that time of year. Good resolutions or something. This makes me really sad because there is always the problem when you have two friends together, that your friendship with one of the couple will crumble after the separation. When X left me, we joked that we would share custody of the friends we had in common, and never make them feel they had to choose. And this worked out pretty well.

Now the tables are turned, since the man I'm seeing is best friends with his ex. After years of explaining to people that it was foolish to feel threatened by my exes, and that we now only shared friendship, I'm on the other side of the fence.
And...I have no problem with this. Shocking, yeah? I like it. I like that he can go beyond tension and sadness and create a great bond with someone really awesome. And yes, I've met her.

Somehow I feel this sounds stereotypically French. I should be wearing a stripey T-shirt with effortless style, while eating croissants with my ex-husband's new wife, and smoking filterless cigarettes while accordeon music wafts through the open window.

Anyone here friends with their ex(es)?