Eat the Damn Cake

So it’s Body Image Warrior Week— the fabulous creation of Sally McGraw (of Already Pretty fame)! We’re hooking up with NEDA for NEDAwareness Week and drawing attention to the need to talk about body image. All of the BIWW participants submitted a post and we’re now featuring those posts on our blogs. Here’s the one I picked. It’s by Rosie Molinary:

Years ago, there was an ad (Nike?) that I just loved.  It read:

You are born.  And oh, how you wail! Your first breath is a scream. Not timid or low, but selfish and shattering, with all the force of waiting nine months under water. Your whole life should be like that: An announcement.

I tore it out when I saw it and plastered it on my vision wall in my bedroom, my eyes focused on those words: an announcement.  Could I live my life like an announcement? And would the way I lived my life be worthy of an announcement?

I am reminded of that ad when I watch my son, in his full self-possession, move through the world.  He is irrepressible, embodied joy, electric.  He, indeed, lives his life as an announcement.  He’s not scared to make an announcement, and he is certainly not scared that his announcement isn’t good enough.  Just by being, his announcement is special, he reminds me.

Every single child begins that way- we all begin self-possessed and confident about our announcement.  All of us come into this world playing big, not small.  We don’t suppress our cries or laughs or joys.  We don’t think badly of ourselves.  We live life as an announcement and what we have to announce feels worthy, valuable, like a gift to the world.

(source)

But, too often, somewhere on the way to adulthood, something shifts.  Our sense of our own brilliance fades.  Our understanding of our own beauty dims.  Our announcement is quieted.  Maybe it was the media that overwhelmed us.  With instant access to information, with thousands of images shot at us every day, maybe we digested and internalized too much of the scrutiny.  Maybe it was an unintended slight that stung us or a comment that someone delivered flippantly that we have held onto forever.  Maybe it was not being chosen for this or being ignored by them, maybe it was a loss so significant that it still seems like our soul is empty from it.  Maybe it was the way our body matured into adulthood that felt like a betrayal, or the way that it didn’t.

Continue Reading »

Last Saturday, Bear wanted to have an adventure.

“Get up,” he said, gesturing at me where I was lying on the couch, crying as I watched the fifth episode of Grey’s Anatomy (I started watching it for the first time last week—I’m always late to everything cultural). “We’re going to have an adventure.”

“What?” I said. “But Alex is finally showing a soft side! I think he has feelings! And this woman is about to die! What will happen to her kids?”

“Fine,” he said, “But we are going to go for a drive.”

“A drive?” We definitely don’t have a car.

He seemed to be thinking on his feet: “We’re renting a zipcar. We’re going to explore Brooklyn.”

“Oh, cool. But don’t we have to be somewhere in an hour and a half?”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re going to explore Brooklyn for an hour.”

He found a zipcar nearby. Near enough by. I threw on boots and  sweatshirt. Off we went.

After ending up on the wrong side of a major road for a while, we found the garage, and the tiny red zipcar that Bear could barely fit inside. He wanted to drive anyway, which was fine with me since I have never actually driven in the city except for that one, terrible time, in the U-Haul, in Union Square, when I nearly killed those young mothers pushing their infant children in strollers into the middle of traffic. And a bunch of scrappy NYU kids with purple hair. They almost died, too.

So Bear drove. He drove out of the parking lot. He drove up to the light. He nearly drove us onto the BQE, but then he turned at the last second, saying that he thought it was going the wrong way. We wanted to head out towards Red Hook, and beyond, towards the ocean, wherever that is.

Continue Reading »

I am almost twenty-six. One week left. It’s coming up fast, like a velociraptor. I am running, but you know it’s gonna get me, and those things are wily. They’ve practically got hands. With giant claws.

(see?? source)

Twenty-six. That’s on the other side of the twenties. More towards the thirties, where all sorts of secrets about life lie. Where I think they’ve put adulthood, at least temporarily.

Anyway, I found a WHITE HAIR. Yesterday. Which is not such a big deal. People have been known to find those before the age of twenty-six. But it just seems symbolic, or something—the timing. The timing feels a little harsh. Like, yeah, this time next year, they’ll all be white, honey. Just so you know.

That’s OK. White hair is nice. I knew a girl with white hair in college. It was gorgeous until she dyed it.

But twenty-six? How much am I supposed have accomplished by now? I think probably more than I have. Maybe a Pulitzer? A Nobel? An Oscar? Some other kind of giant prize? Something gold and shiny, triumphant and permanent that I can stick on a pedestal in the middle of the room and everyone can think, “Well, she’s amazing forever.” And then they will stop asking me questions like, “So…you write? That’s fun. Anything else? Still looking for a job?” If not a prize, at least a six-figure book deal. I would accept that. “Young Author Catches Literary World By Surprise With Sheer Brilliance! Is Declared Greatest Writer Ever.”

I’m not going to get started.

I’m not going to retell the story of the college girls my friend overheard on the elevator who were like, “What is she, like, twenty-six?!” “No way! I thought she was young!” “No, dude, she’s like twenty-six.” “Shit…well, she looks pretty young for her age. She’s still cool.”

Continue Reading »

This is a guest post from Nicolette, who sent me an email saying “I wrote something that should probably be on your blog.” I agreed, and I’m interested to hear your thoughts on what it takes to stop the voices that tell us we should be skinny. Because those damn things can be incredibly persistent. 

The pressure has always been there, ever since I was old enough to notice bodies or to read Teen magazine (who is that younger version of myself who actually had a subscription to that magazine? 2012 Nikki can barely recognize her).  It was the pressure to be a certain kind of pretty, to wear make-up, to do my hair a certain way, to have certain clothes, and to be skinny like all the models whose bones played the role of hanger to each month’s trends.

I studied those magazines like they were bibles, and I went to insane lengths to meet their standards.  I showered every single morning.  Every morning I straightened my naturally wavy hair before caking on a layer of foundation/eyeliner/eye shadow/et al.  I felt wrong leaving the house without straight hair, wouldn’t have dreamt of going out without make up.  But the biggest pressure of all was always the pressure to be skinny, horrifyingly, “perfectly” skinny.  Like the hanger women in the magazines.

Continue Reading »

I’m writing this because someone wrote to me the other day and said, “Have you ever written about having friends of different ages? I think you might have, but if you haven’t, maybe you could do that?” I have, on my other blog. But I wanted to do it again, here, anyway.

When I was fourteen, I had a good friend who was eight. She kicked butt. I can’t even begin to describe to you how cool this girl was. We used to dress up together, in queen outfits, and ridiculous jewelry, and then meet in the woods and act surprised.

“Is that you, Queen Sanla? I recognize your purple queen dress.”

“It is I, dragon tamer. Tell me your name, for though I have heard the legends of your talent with the northern dragons, I had only half believed they were real.”

“Brellen Vek. I have made a long journey to reach you. I’m afraid the news is sad.”

I was writing a book, and she was a character in it. I promised to dedicate it to her. When, inevitably, it got published. As it was sure to do, because it was AMAZING.

OK, it wasn’t amazing. It was terrible. Very terrible. The evil character was called “the great evil,” if that gives you an idea.

When I was fifteen, I had a good friend who was eighty.

Continue Reading »

First I go on Facebook. I always look at the same three people’s profiles. I disagree with their life choices. I shake my head and sigh and roll my eyes and feel superior. Seriously? You call that a status update? Are you insane? But I can’t stop checking. I know the inner working of these people’s lives better than I know anything about the way my own country’s government functions. Better than I know how to bake cookies. Better than I understand basic biology. Not as well as I know New York real estate, or grilled cheeses, or the game SET, but pretty close.

(they may call it a “family game,” but there’s nothing familial about the way I play it. I am ruthless. I take no prisoners. source)

Then I check Twitter. Two more people have followed me. That’s good. I think I have a reasonable number of followers. I’m not sure it’s the right amount. I check to see how many followers The Bloggess has. Holy shit. 215,301. I click over to her blog. She is being funny, in this sort of complicated, dry, extremely clever way. How does she keep doing it, all the time? Who else is a famous blogger? I locate a few. Damn, here’s a post with three-hundred comments under it. THREE-HUNDRED.

Who else is famous in general? There’s always some really young writer whose book just got an incredibly favorable review in the Times. I check out the review. Really? “Frolicking, phantasmic prose”? Can that be a thing? God. I am so lazy. My prose almost never frolics. I don’t have a chance, do I? Probably not.

Continue Reading »