Archive for August, 2010
Yesterday the Rolling Stones came on the radio singing, “Brown Sugar”. And I thought of Mick Jagger and the rest of the Rolling Stones who are still touring and making music and they’re in their sixties. Name a woman rocker who is doing the same.
“I think it’s because we don’t accept women growing old, getting fat, or getting lines on our faces,” I told David.
“What are you talking about? ” David asked. “It’s because the Rolling Stones were more famous than any other woman singer or band. There up there with Beatles and The Who. And there are more men in rock ‘n roll than women.”
Okay, maybe. But then what about a band like Heart who rocked in the seventies and eighties. Ann Wilson, who struggled with weight all her life, starved herself in the seventies because of the pressure to be thin. When she started to gain weight, this became the focus instead of her powerful voice. Nancy Wilson, Ann’s sister, became the cute one. Are we making these comparisons between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards? I mean both of them look like caricatures of their former selves with their deep, grooved lines in their faces, but they’re still selling out stadiums and people talk to them about their music and not the way they look.
In the “Huffington Post” last week there was an article about the controversy regarding the writer Jonathan Franzen, who has been receiving star treatment from the literary community for his latest family saga, Freedom. Franzen was on the cover of “Time” and the “NY Times” did a book review praising him for his work. Why aren’t best selling authors like Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner, who both write about families, get the same kind of accolades? As women writers we are categorized into “chick lit,” “mommy lit”, “hen lit”, etc. Where are these categories when it comes to male authors? Weiner points out the only time the playing field is leveled is when women authors are writing in genres, like mystery and horror, that men will read. Why is that?
Am I outraged about all this? Yes. But I’m sad, too. I’m sad that Heidi Montag from “The Hills” had ten plastic surgeries, including G cup breasts and a nose job at the age of twenty-two, a mere year older than my oldest daughter. I’m sad pop music is full of examples of young women who are looked at for the weight on the scale (Remember the flack Jessica Simpson got from gaining weight?) or how seductive and sexy they can be (Think Lady Gaga’s, “Alejandro.”).
We are more than this.
We are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies like PepsiCo, WellPoint, and Xerox.
We are world leaders of such countries as India, Germany and Australia.
We are Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, physiology and literature.
We are more than bodies.
What do you think?
On 2005′s Australian MTV Awards, Anna Nicole Smith sashayed across the stage dressed in a haltered flamenco dress of red and black. As she made her way to the podium she waved her hands above her head and then ran them up and down her body. The crowd roared. The more the audience clapped and hooted, the more Smith preened at the podium. Finally, she leaned into the microphone and drunkenly asked, “Like my body?”
Yesterday while getting ready for work, I watched a segment about websites showing young women how to starve themselves. As one of the recovering anorexics who was being interviewed said, “These websites are assisted suicide for people like me.” Anorexia has one of the highest suicide rates of any mental illness. Eating disorders, like anorexia, affect mostly young women who are usually the oldest in their families, are smart and high achievers and who are trying to achieve perfectionism by controlling their bodies.
Last night at the gym, I listened to two gorgeous “middle of their lives” women talk about how they wouldn’t be caught dead in bathing suits while doing anything besides lying on their backs. Then they proceeded to point out all their flaws, including their butts, thighs, and stomachs.
This morning I went and got weighed. I was up causing me to be depressed. I’ve been working out, tracking points. Then I started thinking about Anna Nicole Smith (God rest her soul. What pain she must have been in.), all those young women who have been lured by those sites giving tips on how to starve themselves, and my friends lamenting about their thighs. I have been every one of these women. Okay, I haven’t sashayed across a stage while asking millions of people, “Like my body?” But I have been desperate for people to notice me and it seemed important to be thin in order for this to happen. I haven’t subscribed to any of those websites promoting eating disorders but I have starved myself for many years in order to be perfect. And I’m embarrassed to say how much time I’ve wasted on “if only I had a six pack” and “if only my breasts were perky.”
Yeah, I gained weight today, my breasts aren’t what they used to be and I don’t have a six pack, but I’m blessed with the body I have. I’ve given birth to three healthy and beautiful children, and breastfed every one of them. This ol’ body can deadlift two hundred pounds, do chest-to-bar pull ups and clapping push ups. I’ve come a long way from the girl who thought if she was thin, then everything was right with the world. But I continue to work on being grateful for all the things I have. I’m a work in progress.
One thing is clear. Like my body? Yes. Yes, I do.
Have you had body image problems?
Jack's kindergarten photo
For David.
It’s that time of year again. School begins. Jack starts second grade tomorrow. I won’t say the obvious. Okay, I can’t help it. Where did the summer go? Where does time go? Second grade? I remember dropping him off for kindergarten two years ago. I didn’t want to let go of his hand. I was scared to let go, but not in the way you might think after reading this blog. Jack had trouble with impulse control. For instance, when he was in preschool he threw wooden blocks at his preschool teachers and other kids.
So was I surprised when we got the call from the principal during the first week of kindergarten saying Jack was in her office for being one of some boys who flushed paper towels down the toilet? Yes. Yes, I was. And I was surprised the next week, too, when Jack found himself in the principal’s office again.
“Boys will be boys, Michelle,” the principal said. “They’re learning to control themselves.” Control? I’d been dogged by the “c” word all my life and now Jack was learning how to negotiate this, too.
Kindergarten was a tough year for David, Jack and me. On those days, I’d go to school to pick up Jack and pray all the way there he didn’t get a pink slip, he had kept his hands to himself and he didn’t have to pick up trash during lunch rather than playing because he’d gotten in trouble. On those days when David picked him up, I prayed I’d get a call from David saying Jack had a great day.
I know now that getting in trouble wasn’t easy on Jack either. Bless his heart. We were all trying to find a way to make it better.
The first three months of first grade didn’t go much better. One day when Jack had gotten yet another note home, I cried right there in the middle of the hall.
“Mama, don’t cry,” Jack said. “I’ll do better. I promise.” And he did.
To my friends, Kim and Kimberly, to the principal and all the other moms of sons who told me, “This too shall pass.” To his first grade teachers who told Jack everyday he was destined for greatness, I say thank you.
Jack is the funniest boy I know. He’s smart. He told his sisters today, “I have a thought every second into my conscious.” This summer he got an award at camp for “demonstrating daily the lifelong values of caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility.” When one of his sisters got a speeding ticket, he offered the money in his piggy bank to help pay for the ticket. Jack teaches us every day about heart, spontaneity, and having fun. He is my mirror. I see how he struggles with anxiety, worrying and fitting in, all those things I struggle with, too.
On the last day of first grade Jack said, “That was the best nine months of my life.”
We smiled at each other. “I’m glad to hear it.”
Then he got serious. “But is okay if I get sent to the principal’s office in the first couple of days of second grade. You know I’m going to have a whole summer to forget what they taught me during first grade, and I might slip. I’m just saying…”
And I’m just saying let the fun begin!
Here is “To Sir With Love” because it reminds me of the first day of school. What has your child or a teacher taught you?
The other day while driving in my car I listened to NPR. Yes, I listen to high brow radio, but this isn’t what this post is about. Is it? A story came on about Joshua Braff whose professor asked who he and the rest of the MFA students liked to read. Braff responded John Irving. There was collective snickering throughout the classroom. Braff’s classmates had thrown out Flannery O’Connor, Raymond Carver and William Faulkner.
“… and DeLillo … of course … Joyce,” Braff added to make himself feel better. Although Braff felt ridiculous at the time to admit to his guilty reading pleasure, he now stands behind what John Irving has done for writers in terms of craft, characters and story.
This got me thinking about my guilty pleasures both writing and otherwise. Here’s my list (You’re welcome, Melia Lore.) of some of my guilty pleasures:
- Marshmallows-Straight out of the bag big fluffy sugary marshmallows. A marshmallow’s ingredient list includes Corn Syrup, Sugar, Dextrose, Modified Corn Starch, Water, Gelatin, Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate (Whipping Aid), Artificial Flavor, Artificial Color (Blue 1). This is why I don’t read the ingredient list and why it’s a guilty pleasure since I know these little chemical bundle of joys could cause some serious internal damage. Teeth be damned.
- Claim Jumper’s Ice Cream Sandwich-Nestled between two giant chocolate chip Heath Bar cookies is three cups of vanilla bean ice cream. On top of this masterpiece is both hot fudge and caramel syrup. Until now, I’ve never considered the calories or the Weight Watcher points of this guilty pleasure, and it turns out there’s a reason. The two cookies alone are about 1500 calories. Yikes. I want you to know I’m not totally gross. I share this indulgence. But now I’m questioning the sanity of using this cookie concoction to celebrate my weight loss accomplishments.
- People Magazine-This magazine is all about mind-numbing, candy brain lovin’, good times. Heavy on the photos and light on the text. Here’s another confession, I read the New Yorker for the cartoons. I’ve been known to laugh hysterically in the doctor’s office while my kids look at me as if I’ve gone mad (or more mad than usual). But seriously, who has time to read the New Yorker articles? I don’t. Or should I say, I don’t make the time. But I see this as no different than those men who claim to “read” Playboy. Come on, really? The articles?
Pop music-I love catchy, uncomplicated music. I love songs by Jason Mraz and Dave Matthews, and oh, yeah country music, without the twang and the sappier the story the better. Jazz and classical music are a little too complicated for my brain.- Give me romantic comedies, mind fluff, any day over dark, dark, dark movies. I’ve never seen “Sophie’s Choice,” although I read the book, because visually I couldn’t stand to watch her choice.
- I have read Carver, Faulkner, Hemingway, and other literary giants. But can I tell you something? I love a good story. And as a working mom with three kids and now three dogs, I need stories that leap from the pages and grab me by the throat. I need stories I can read at the end of the day, for fifteen minutes before my eyelids become so heavy I have to put the book down. The next night I need to be able to pick up the book, and start reading where I left off without missing a beat. I can’t read dense prose that has more than three hundred pages. Right now I’m enjoying reading “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and “The Adventures of Captain Underpants” with Jack. These are funny stories and they have pictures. Come on. Who’s with me?
There are reasons for guilty pleasures. For me, it’s about comfort, fun, levity, escape, denial. These are all ways I lighten up. Maybe one day when life is a little lighter and less hectic, I will turn to “Moby Dick” while sipping my herbal tea and nibbling on my organic home grown oranges and apples. In the background there will be something jazzy playing on the stereo. But until then, here’s to marshmallows and Jason Mraz.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
For Fleet
“What are you longing at dear friend?”
Fleet, my writer friend, asked me this after reading my last post on my fear of goodbyes and my need to hold on to people and the past. He went on to say he’d heard all writing comes from longing.
Really?
Albert Einstein said, “Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.”
Really?
I delve further and find there have been many artists who have created, written, painted, or sung about this prolonged yearning that cannot be fulfilled.
Matthew Arnold, an English poet, wrote:
Longing
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!
Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
Fleet was on to something. What was I longing at? What were those unfulfilled desires and yearnings I couldn’t stop writing about?
I long for things to stay the same. I long for the past but not back to my childhood but a time when Molly and Kelly were children so I can do it right. I want to always believe in God, in Buddha, in a higher power. I yearn to know there is more to this life than this. I want peace. Yes, I want world peace. I want people to have full bellies and lives and be loved and give love. But I’m also talking about peace of mind, my peace of mind. If I don’t have peace, can I truly wish peace for other people? Can I? I want a quiet mind and soul. I want contentment, to be satisfied.
Really?
Fleet asked me, “What are you longing at dear friend? Then he said, “Write it.” Maybe that’s it; maybe I write so in that moment on the page things will stay the same. Maybe I write to make things right or to figure out how and why life went wrong and then to try not to do it the same way again. I yearn for answers. I hope by writing about the past there will be these answers and peace. I write to understand myself and the world better. Saul Bellow, a novelist, wrote, “There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.” Yes. Yes. Yes. And while I yearn for peace, I’m not so sure I’d be satisfied with contentment. I’m not so sure I’d want to stop my longing to write and to find the right words, to live a deeper and fuller life. In fact, I know this to be true.
I’ll leave you with Radiohead’s “Creep,” a song about longing and belonging.
What do you long for?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BigLittleWolf says, “For me, sometimes writing is about longing. Sometimes, it is about learning. Often, it is about going somewhere else in my mind. A place that is safer, simpler, and where nothing hurts.”
