Eat the Damn Cake

Dear Three-Sided Dressing Room Mirror,

I couldn’t let it go. I know I said I would. But I can’t. We need to talk.

OK, you’re supposed to be helping me, here. Right? Isn’t that what you do? Isn’t that your job? Maybe you don’t like your job, but in today’s economy, you should probably be a little more grateful. And a lot nicer.

I’m not trying to accuse you of outright lying, but I think that you might be bending the truth a little. I have looked at myself plenty of times. I have some mirrors in my apartment. And I don’t look like that. Not completely. I’m really not that bad. At least, I’m not all of those bad things at once!

Before I met you, I never thought that I in any way resembled a duck. Now I’m not sure. And that makes me nervous.

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A cool and successful fat acceptance writer approached me, along with some other body-image bloggers, and asked us to submit essays for a book she’s getting published. It sounded like an awesome project. I wanted to participate. But I felt a little weird about it. Like I might be stepping on some toes.

So I wrote to her, and I tried to figure out how to say “I might not be fat enough,” in the politest way possible. It was difficult. But I think I did it.

She must have missed the email, because yesterday, I got another call for submissions from her. “Hey fatties!” it began.

“Um,” I wrote (because I sound awkward even over email), “I’d love to do a piece about accepting weight gain, and feeling good about getting bigger. But I don’t want to offend anyone either. I don’t think I…qualify.”

She wrote back. “It’s about whether or not you identify as fat. If you do, that’s fine. If you don’t, I’ll take you off the list.”

“Wait…” I said, stupidly. “I don’t think I know what you mean by ‘identify as fat’.”

She didn’t respond.

This was all very interesting.

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Last night I had a dream that my breasts were bigger. I was bigger. I saw a picture of myself and I wanted to give myself a hug, because I looked so comfortable and squishy. And because it was a dream, I gave myself a hug. It was really nice.

(I had long hair again in the dream, too. Sorry, I’m bad at drawing hands.)

And then, the way dreams do, it shifted, and I was meeting all of these famous people somehow. I was in the back of a limo, surrounded by movie stars and the very rich. It was an uncreative American fantasy. Some of them were talking with me, but a moment later, this model got into the car. She had her blond hair pulled up, and her face had that taut look model’s faces have, and it didn’t matter what she was wearing because she could make those sacks designers are always designing look sexy. And suddenly no one cared that I was there. And it was clear that they wouldn’t care again.

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Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year. Tonight begins the celebration of the beginning of creation– the birth of the world. That’s a big thing to celebrate. And tonight begins an intensive period called the Days of Awe, in which Jews are supposed to look very carefully at their lives and think about what went right and what went wrong over the past year. Were there people who they hurt? It’s time to apologize. It’s time to start taking responsibility.

Rosh Hashanah always comes up suddenly, even though it’s every year. I never feel completely ready, and then, when I think hard about it, I realize I am.

I am ready.

I remember the fluttering panic leading up to a piano recital, when I was a kid. I was terrified of messing up. I think I’m still scared of messing up.

I’m scared sometimes that I made the wrong decision when I decided to try to make writing my career. What if that was irresponsible and foolish? What if I never “make it”? What if I’m just messing up?

I’m scared that I’m not enough.

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I am having one of those days. Rosh Hashanah starts tomorrow, and I’m going to be standing behind a podium in front of hundreds of people. They are going to all look at me at the same time. And then I’ll sing. A lot. In Hebrew. Which I am used to, because I’ve been doing it for ten years now. But I’m not used to it, either, because it’s really hard to get used to singing in Hebrew in front of a lot of people.

Once Rosh Hashanah gets started, there’s no stopping it. Thursday and Friday will be spent in the synagogue, my eyes skipping ahead on the printed outline of the service that sits on the podium in front of me. “Oh, shit. Here comes the ha-melech…I never get the melody exactly right. I never remember to take a big enough breath before the high part…”

(the huge, heavy High Holiday prayerbook I chant from. You wouldn’t believe what that thing does to your wrists after you hold it up for awhile)

I am having one of those days. It started yesterday, actually, when I was frantically shopping for a white skirt, because it turned out that nothing fit right or looked right, and I have to wear white for the High Holidays. No one is selling white now. There’s a rule. It involves Labor Day, which already happened. I was in the dressing room, and I looked bad from every angle. Every time I looked at myself I could think of ten things that were unfixably wrong with me. “No woman could ever make that neck work.”

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I like my women striking. It’s self-centered. It’s because I have a big nose, I think. I’ve been to war and back with my big nose, but the women I think are the most stunning almost always have big noses, too. I can walk by a hundred Victoria’s Secret posters (and I do. Who doesn’t, in the city?), and not care. But when I  meet a woman with something different going on with her beauty, I am immediately intrigued.

Maybe I just like tension. I like love stories about Muslims and Jews. I am bored by romantic comedies where the difference between the girl and the guy is that she is a girl and she has brown eyes and he is a guy and he has blue eyes.

I like beauty that surprises a little.

And then, inevitably, when I get to know a surprising beautiful woman, she doesn’t like the thing about her that makes her surprising.

And even though I am exactly the same, I am a little crushed.

(wait, it’ll make sense in a second)

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