This little piggy
Edition 40: Reflections on the wonder of imperfect bodies
When I was seventeen, I smoked too much weed and blacked out, chin first, and broke a bunch of my teeth. It was quite something — or so my mother tells me, who I was talking to at the time. She was tucked up in bed, I was being a good daughter and checking in when I got home from a night out. Next thing you know, there’s blood on the carpet and an ambulance on the way. I can’t wait to parent a teenager…
I actually have two scars under my chin. One from that incident and another criss crossed beneath it: from falling on an ice rink when I was 12-ish, showing off for my bestie on a weekend away at her dad’s house, for which we wore matching short dungarees from GAP. Luckily for me, I was never destined to be a model anyway, so these jawline infractions weren’t a big deal. Increasingly I look fondly on the marks my body holds of time passed and life explored.
It’s almost the end of another year. Another year streaked with death and suffering on a global scale, and for so many people on a personal level. I have lived long enough now, and witnessed enough people deal with sickness and loss — experienced some of it myself — to understand that waking up every day in a body that is intact and healthy is not something to be taken for granted.
I was going to write something about local politics and the admiration I have for those who stand up for what they believe in, but honestly I have run out of energy. I’ll come back to that. Instead, I wanted to take a moment to appreciate the imperfect beauty of existing in a human body that works (for the most part).
Like so many teenage girls — particularly those who grew up in the 90s — I spent way too many years hating my body. Kate Moss reportedly said at the time: “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” What a time to be alive and hormonal. Obviously, she’s wrong, and I hope for Kate’s sake that she too has realized that. I have a similar mantra now: “Nothing tastes as good as a meal I didn’t cook myself.” Jokes aside, I have found peace with my body over the years and try to focus on all the things it allows me to do, not just how it looks in the mirror.
Increasingly, I find it’s the weirdest things about me I have the most affection for.
My thumbs, for example. They bend really far back into an upside down L shape. It’s a fun party trick that my son has inherited. Mind you, my thumbs do now click strangely quite a lot of the time, and I will probably end up with crippling arthritis.
My right knee also bears a scar that looks up at me like an eye when I sit down. There was a summer — I think when I was 6 years old — when I was obsessed with band aids. I loved the different patterns you could get, the way you could fiddle with them in class, and the tingly feeling they gave you when you ripped them off. I went out of my way to do things that required me to receive them: recklessly riding my bike close to the curb of the cul-de-sac we lived on, for example. I got the band aid, and a scar to boot.
My elbows have always been a little bit rough. My husband likes to refer to them as elephant skin (with love.) I know there’s gloopy creams I can apply but I usually forget. No-one notices that much and they are in otherwise excellent working condition, creating a perfect point when I’m posing awkwardly for the camera with my hand on my hip.
My feet — oooohh baby. What a mess. I’ve always said my feet are too small for my 5’7” frame. After decades striding around major metropolitan centers in heels, two pregnancies and a couple of marathons, I now hobble around on misshapen size 38 trotters that randomly shoot pain up my leg if I wear anything that aren’t sneakers or Birkenstocks. These days I attempt one long running race a year, and every year without fail I lose two toenails from the training. If feet could tell talk, mine would say: “Have mercy.”
My laughter lines around my eyes. I haven’t caved yet with Botox — the danger is that I leave it too long, becoming so wrinkly that it’s shocking and too obvious when I smooth myself out. I’ve always had an insanely expressive forehead, that’s inherited; I get it from my Dad, but I give him a pass since he also gave me longish legs. The laughter lines feel earned though. Laughing is one of my favorite things to do. Surely, it would be sad not to have accumulated any?
Then there’s my belly. My clever, strong belly that used to be so flat and taut, with a cute inny belly button. Then it grew and grew as my son grew, then got flattish again, then grew and grew as my daughter grew, then back to what it is now. A little looser, a little mottled with left over cellulite, with one slightly puckered bit above the second C-section scar where they pulled one side of the incision as they stitched me back up. It’s not as pretty, but it’s comfy for the kids when they lay their head in my lap.
Thank you body.
For all the places we’ve been and the tables we’ve danced on.
For growing people inside you — people I would die for.
For running up hills with girlfriends for the last 20 years.
For typing fast when I have ideas to spew out.
For healing up when I slipped on rocks or starved you of calories or burnt your skin for vanity.
For keeping me warm on the inside, even when it’s freezing out.
For keeping going even when my brain didn’t want to.
For somehow not puking when my kids are vomiting.
For hugging the people I love.
For learning the chords to the Succession theme tune, which gives me no end of pleasure.
Thank you body, for today and tomorrow.