Category: Uncategorized
Something to report of love
It’s the end of vacation, when all the things we meant to do over the summer cascade into guilt and regret. “Tree house” and “ocean” and “art museum” come off the list; “haircut” and “school shopping” go on. We should have done more! When I was little, I remember doing more.
On the radio, I heard the end of an essay by a man trying to connect with his elderly father, a father who had been harsh and distant for decades. I gathered that the one happy childhood memory the narrator had was of their annual, extravagant beach house vacation. The kids would run and play and whoop it up, while the dad would glower and retreat to the couch to watch TV. Still, he made it happen year after year.
Now, forty years later, the man finally asked his father if he had fun on those vacations — and if not, if he hated them as much as he seemed to, why did he make such a point of taking them every year?
It turns out that the old man, now almost eighty years old, was still smarting from the sting of his childhood, from the first day of school, when the teacher would assign that dreaded essay, “What I Did On My Summer Vacation.” The only true answer would have been: “We gathered peaches to pay the landlord” or “We shot rats in the turnip field so we wouldn’t starve come winter.”
So he and his brothers would make up something to write about, something that would prove that they had been having fun like the rest of the world. He resolved that his own kids wouldn’t have to resort to fantasy. They’d do something real on summer vacation, something wonderful. Something to report.
When my kids were all little, I used to accuse myself of not so much striving to make a happy childhood for them, as striving to create evidence that they had had a happy childhood. A baby book full of carefully edited anecdotes and cute dialogue; a photo album of high points and rare good days. Maybe, day to day, they had to cower away from me and my mood swings, and maybe they longed for me to just sit down, relax, and play with them, rather than frantically crafting towers of glorious expectations, and then collapsing in tears when it all caved in under the weight of real life. Maybe so. In the words of an old guide to confession: I am unable to judge the severity of my actions.
Either way, I had some hard evidence. I could point to the salt clay figurines, the stretchy loop potholders, the quirky animal sewing cards I had made just for them, using the back of a Crispix box and my own lifeblood, and I could say, “The proof is here. Only a loving mother would have done this. Remember how I let you make muffins with me, even though you drive me crazy? Let’s laminate this photo of you petting a goat at age 2, and let’s not laminate the memory of me crying over how much money we spent to get in. You liked that goat, you liked it very much. But you won’t remember, so I need to nail it down now, to present to the judge, I mean put in your baby book. And look, you were wearing a dress that I sewed myself.”
Behold, the gulf between love and intentions. Oh, the longing to love, the longing to be loved, the longing to have been loved. Oh, the clumsy swipes we take at that shining, shifting goal of happiness.
We are all, maybe, hoping to pacify the demands of the past, striving to bridge the gulf, to reach back over all those summers and tell our own selves as children, “Yes, you were happy. Here’s the proof.” We’re telling that long-dead teacher, now moldering in the grave, “You wanted an essay? You wanted to know what I did? Here’s my child, and he had fun on his summer vacation. Here’s the evidence you demanded; it’s all there.”
Here are the things I remember about my childhood, along with the vacations and the treats, the parades and the birthday parties — and also along with the mood swings and strife, the tensions and shouting, tipped-over tables slammed doors. Here are the things I remember, from summer and from winter, from the long, empty, formless days of vacation and the long, empty, formless days inside the lonely, needy heart of a child looking for some definitive proof of love:
I remember my mother putting down her book (more precious than rubies) and looking me straight in the eye when I called her name. My father pausing for a minute before he answered me, staying silent a little too long, muscling past his first impulse to criticize or refute. My big sisters praising me for so skillfully walking down the stairs with only one foot on each step, instead of two, like babies do. I remember being on rented skates and being swooped up from behind, a rescue just as the floor loomed up to pound in my face. I remember someone holding a pajama zipper away from my belly, protecting my skin as they zipped it up. I remember being protected.
There’s the evidence, and I’m writing it down now. It is the end of summer. We have something to report.
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A version of this essay originally ran under a different title at Aleteia in 2016.
Image: David Prasad via Flickr (Licensed)
New book: A Pope Francis Lexicon (including my chapter!)
Now ready for pre-order: A Pope Francis Lexicon — and guess what? I somehow have a chapter in it!
My chapter deals with the word “embrace,” and while I did regretfully excise the passage where I compare Francis to the Sta Puft Marshmallow Man, I attempt to answer the thorny question: Does our pope really think huggy togetherness is an adequate substitute for orthodoxy? I try to answer the question sincerely, based on his writing and his actions, and from the perspective of someone who is sometimes frustrated by his approach.
This book has an impressive line-up of fifty illustrious contributors who each
explore the Pope’s use of words like joy, clericalism, money, family, and tears. Together, they reveal what Francis’s use of these words says about him, his ministry and priorities, and their significance to the church, the world, and the lives of individual Christians. The entire collection is introduced by a foreword by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide, and a preface by one of Francis’s closest advisors, Cardinal Seán O’Malley.
Here’s a full list of the chapter themes and contributors:
Volume foreword Patriarch Bartholomew
Volume preface Cardinal Seán O’Malley, OFM Cap
Baptism Cardinal Donald Wuerl
Benedict XVI David Gibson
Capitalism Bishop Robert McElroy
Careerism Cardinal Joseph Tobin, C.Ss.R.
Church Elizabeth Bruenig
Clerical abuse Francis Sullivan
Clericalism Archbishop Paul-André Durocher
Collegiality Archbishop Mark Coleridge
Conscience Austen Ivereigh
Creation Orthodox Fr. John Chryssavgis
Curia Massimo Faggioli
Dialogue Archbishop Roberto González Nieves, OFM
Dignity Tina Beattie
Discernment Fr. James Martin, SJ
Devil/Satan Greg Hillis
Ecumenism Nontando Hadebe
Embrace Simcha Fisher
Encounter/Encuentro Archbishop Victor Fernández
Episcopal Accountability Katie Grimes
Family Julie Hanlon Rubio
Field Hospital Cardinal Blase Cupich
Flesh Msgr. Dario Viganò
Gossip Kaya Oakes
Grandparents Bill Dodds
Hacer lio Fr. Manuel Dorantes
Hope Natalia Imperatori-Lee
Immigrant Sr. Norma Seni Pimentel, MJ
Indifference Sr. Carmen Sammut, MSOLA
Jesus Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, SJ
Joy Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP
Judgment Michael O’Loughlin
Justice Sr. Simone Campbell, SSS
Leadership Kerry Robinson
Legalism Sr. Teresa Forcades i Vila, OSB
Martyrdom Bishop Borys Gudziak
Mercy Archbishop Donald Bolen
Miracles John Thavis
Money Andrea Tornielli
Periphery Carolyn Woo
Prayer Bishop Daniel Flores
Reform Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, SDB
Refugee Rhonda Miska
Second Vatican Council Archbishop Diarmuid Martin
Service Phyllis Zagano
Sheep Archbishop Justin Welby
Sourpuss Fr James Corkery, SJ
St. Francis Fr. Michael Perry, OFM
Tears Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle
Throwaway culture Sr. Pat Farrell, OSF
Worldliness Mollie Wilson O’Reilly
Women Astrid Gajiwala
Youth Jordan Denari Duffner
Speaking of books, have I mentioned lately that I have a book of my own, and that I’ve contributed chapters to two other books besides A Pope Francis Lexicon? Here they are:
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The Sinner’s Guide to Natural Family Planning
The chapters are divided into three groups:
- NFP and Your Spiritual Life
- NFP and the Rest of the World
- NFP in the Trenches.
Some of the most popular chapters have proven to be “The Golden Box,” which deals with how our decisions work with God’s will, in matters of family planning and in general; and “Groping Toward Chastity,” a title which, if there were any justice in the world, would have won me a Nobel Prize in literature.
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Style, Sex, and Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things That Really Matter
My chapter is “Receiving, Creating, and Letting Go: Motherhood in Body and Soul.”
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Catholic and Married: Leaning Into Love
My chapter, “Mirrors Around a Flame,” explores the idea that children are a gift. This book kind of got lost in the shuffle while there were some logistical issues, but it includes many excellent essays, including Jenny Uebbing’s great chapter on NFP.
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As always, the links above are Amazon Associate links. If you buy these books using the links I provide (or if you buy anything on Amazon after getting to the site through one of my links), I earn a small percentage of each sale. Anytime you shop on Amazon, please consider using my link!
Sometimes people tell me they’re not sure if it’s “working” or not. Thanks for asking! It should look like a normal Amazon page when you click through. If you look up in the URL or address box at the top of the screen, it should have a long string of letters and symbols after Amazon.com, including “ihavtositdo03-20” somewhere in there. That’s me! Here’s a sample of what it will look like when you shop on Amazon using my link:
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I also now have accounts with Amazon Canada and Amazon UK, hooray! Thanks so much. I know it’s one more thing to think about.
Protected: Podcast 33: He’s a very nice guy
Is silence consent? Virtue vs. virtue signalling
Yesterday, I tussled with some friends over the issue of “virtue signalling.”
In the immediate aftermath of the hideous events in Charlottesville, my social media was flooded with friends passionately denouncing racism and white supremacism. Some of the denunciations included an exhortation for all decent folk to do the same: You must speak up. You must take a stand. You must say something. Silence is consent.
Then followed a wave of irritable scoffers who refused to join in the mass denunciation. Their arguments were pretty solid: Of course we reject racism. Of course we’re anti-Nazi. It doesn’t do any good to say so on social media. The only reason you’d do so is to get your social piety card punched, and that’s just cheap and gross. Tomorrow it’ll be another thing that we’re all required to say. Who can keep up? Let’s just talk about what interests us, and refuse to be pushed around by a mob, even if the mob is correct.
Let’s untangle this a bit.
There are most certainly some folks who latch on to every cause, and their passion never rises above virtue signalling. They never act, but they never stop patting themselves on the back for saying the right thing when it’s popular to say it (and somehow, they never feel the urge to speak up when their cause is unpopular). One day, they’re slapping a flag overlay on their profile picture; the next day, they’re wearing safety pins; the next, they’re insisting that everyone stop what they’re doing and sign a useless change.org petition. And that’s all they do. They endlessly congratulate themselves as they flit from one cause to the next, from passion to passion, never seeming to notice that they stopped talking about yesterday’s all-consuming cause as soon as the hashtag stopped trending.
This is pure virtue signalling, and it’s gross. It changes nothing, it means nothing, and it’s actually counterproductive, as it relieves us from truly thinking, engaging, and acting. It’s the ultimate participation trophy: Hooray, you had the courage to be on Twitter and retweet something popular! Go put your feet up, you warrior, you.
So, phooey on this.
There is, however, another large group of people who were saying things very similar to what the virtue signallers were saying: I reject racism. I denounce Nazis. They don’t belong here; they don’t speak for me. America is better than this.
These folks felt like that had to say something, because they were confronted with something so monstrous and incomprehensible, they could not be silent. They wanted to do something, and there was nothing to be done — nothing but saying something. So they said something.
This isn’t virtue signalling. This is the normal, healthy response of a human being who feels appropriate sorrow, appropriate outrage toward aggressors, and appropriate compassion toward victims. It would be best, and truly virtuous, to follow up a public statement with some kind of action — praying, perhaps, or getting more involved in local politics, or sending a note to someone who identifies with the victim. But there’s nothing inherently odious or insincere about responding to evil with a loud, public “Hell, no.”
I have heard from people who identify with the victims — from people raising black kids, for instance — that it gives them great comfort to hear a crowd of people loudly defending them. It would hurt, and be frightening, not to hear it. That in itself is good reason to speak up.
I have also heard from people who’ve said, “I have been too timid to speak up in the past. I’ve let racist jokes slide, and I’ve let insults go unchallenged. Now I see where silence leads, and I’m not going to be silent anymore.” This isn’t posturing; this is conversion of heart. Not virtue signalling, but a sign of actual virtue.
Mere words aren’t always empty, even if they’re popular words.
But what about the claim that silence is consent? This is more complicated. We have heard over and over that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. If an individual is silent, that may not mean that he consents to evil, but if every single individual decides that he’s going to sit this one out because everyone already knows that racism is bad . . . well, if that worked, we’d have a lot fewer names to remember on Memorial Day. And Holocaust Remembrance Day. And so on. If everyone is silent except the ones chanting, “Sieg heil,” then yes, silence is consent.
At the same time, when everyone is shouting at the same time, very little gets heard. When the crowd is screaming at you to start screaming, too, it’s hard to think, and impossible to say something more nuanced than “HELL NO.” And sometimes we expend all our energy in screaming, and then it’s hard to feel we have to do something else, such as actually doing something.
So, sometimes thoughtful, reasonable, courageous people don’t say anything in public. This doesn’t mean they’re cowards, and it doesn’t mean they’re complicit. It doesn’t mean they’re privately rooting for evil.
At the same time, sometimes thoughtful, reasonable, courageous people feel like they cannot be silent in public. This doesn’t mean they are smug, shallow, social justice warriors who are only in it for the applause.
If it’s wrong to demand that Every0ne Use the Hashtag Now Or Else You Are the Problem, it’s also wrong to demand that Everyone Shut Up Because We Know Why You’re Flapping Your Useless SJW Lips. We would all do well to give each other a little clearance when something horrible happens. People respond differently to trauma. This is a feature of social discourse, not a bug.
When we demand unanimity — either of speech or of silence — we’re making ourselves weaker, not stronger. When everyone is saying (or refusing to say) the same thing, we’re like a flock of cloned sheep: A single superbug can take us all out, bam.
Of course, all of the above applies to private people. But if it’s your job to speak out, like if you’re the president of the United States, then you have a clear obligation to condemn specific evil acts and specific evil groups, and silence or vagueness is rightly construed as consent. Damn.
But for the rest of us? You could always just split the difference and let your sousaphone do the talking.
God bless the sousaphone man. More like him, please. And more wiggle room for each other, please, as we hash out our response to the intolerable.
Protected: Podcast 32: Tuna Free!
What’s for supper? Vol. 94: Meat the rainbow!
Sorry this post is so long. I just can’t seem to stop talking.
Quick question: Do the photos load up more slowly or look different from usual? I’m trying a slightly different thing. Let me know!
On to the food.
SATURDAY
Birthday party!
It was a beach party, so of course the day started with thunder and downpours. But it cleared up! The rain just chased all the cowards away, so we had the place to ourselves by party time.
It was sort of a Moana party, so we cleaned out the last of the luau decorations and leis from the dollar store. The cake was the Heart of Te Fiti:
Ehh, close enough. If we needed it to restore the life to our island, I would have looked harder for the green sugar.
I tried Wilton food color spray (affiliate link, certified Kosher, not for sale in Catalina Island. Now you know) for the first time. I was terrified of making it like amateurish graffiti, so I didn’t use enough. Will probably try this stuff again if I need to do a sunset cake or an underwater effect. It smelled like chicken noodle soup, though.
I honestly can’t remember what we had for supper. Maybe burgers.
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SUNDAY
Kids had hot dogs, chips, strawberries and blueberries; we had steak
What happened, see, was we are planning to take the kids to a giant water-and-amusement park this weekend, so we felt okay skipping the county fair this year. But then I had a sudden thought. What if we just went ourselves?
We do have happy times at the fair, but it’s so exhausting and stressful with a crowd of kids. Without them, there would be no bracelets that cost a million dollars, no emotional agony as one kid sorely regrets squandering his One Food Treat on fried dough instead of cotton candy, no sunburned babies, no panic when kids wander away to check out the goats, no grousing, no exhausted toddlers, no “sorry, you’re still not tall enough to ride this ride,” no throwing up, no dehydration, etc.
None of this:
Just fun! Fun fun fun!
So off we went, and . . . very quickly ran out of things to do. I got some fried pickles. We pretended to consider buying a piglet. We went on the Tilt-a-Whirl, and that was nice, but then Pharaoh’s Fury was horrible. HORRIBLE. Just plain scary, with no delightful terror or exquisite tingle of fear. We just both felt like we were going to die the whole time, which we were, and it went on and on and on as death whistled past our ears and everything familiar and safe careened far, far away. When it was finally over, we staggered over to a bench and just sat there wobbling for a while. Then we gave our tickets to some kid and went to Chili’s.
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MONDAY
Cilantro lime chicken, rice
A new-to-me recipe from Damn Delicious. It’s supposed to be for the slow cooker, but Fisher quantities didn’t fit in one Crock Pot, and I feel like the Instant Pot slow cooker isn’t hot enough.
I took a “before” picture because it was so pretty, and I wasn’t sure what it would look like cooked:
So I started it out in the IP for a few hours, then put it on high pressure manual for five minutes. I added a little water, because I wasn’t sure if there was enough liquid for the IP, but it would have been better without; it was a little soupy. I shredded the chicken easily with a fork and served it over white rice or wrapped in tortillas.
It was a good combination of flavors and textures, subject to lots of variation. Will definitely make again. Damn Delicious bills this as a make-ahead freezer meal, because you just prep everything and then throw it into the pot all together, and that’s it.
I know it’s tiresome, but it really is true that fresh ingredients make food so much better. Some days I feel very bitter about going to the trouble of those extra steps (usually because I forgot to buy the quickie version), but I’m always glad I did it when it’s time to eat. Fresh lime juice, fresh cilantro, fresh garlic, yaaas. I did use frozen corn, and it was snappy and flavorful.
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TUESDAY
Deconstructed pork shish kabob, watermelon
Bone-in pork picnic was super cheap, so I bought two, for maybe seven pounds total. I cut the meat off the bone, trimmed the fat, and cubed it, then mixed it up with four sweet peppers, about 16 ounces of halved mushrooms, two red onions, and a few cups of marinade. All the food was cut to the size you’d want for threading it on a skewer.
The marinade: olive oil, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, minced garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes.
I didn’t have time to let it marinate, but just spread it in a single layer on my two giant sheet pans (which I continue to love. We’ve put them through their paces and they have not warped a bit)
and put them under a hot broiler (one pan at a time, so they could get direct heat) until it was blackened.
Everyone loved it. It wasn’t quite the same as food cooked on the grill, because what is? But it was still delicious.
Definitely making this again. You could easily use bottled Italian dressing for the marinade. Although [irritating ticking noise made with my cheek] fresh ingredients, ya know.
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WEDNESDAY
Kids had fish tacos, we had Chinese
Our plan was to ditch the kids again (because it’s summer! Adults should have fun in summer, too!) and I’d meet my husband at his office an hour away, and we’d have Indian take-out on a blanket for an outdoor Bollywood movie.
But I had only cleared half my schedule, and realized I’d be a country mouse fighting rush-hour traffic in the city, and then we’d have to go home in separate cars at the end of the night. Too much like dorm life with curfews! So we ditched the kids anyway, and he taught me how to drive stick shift in a parking lot. Our last stick shift lesson was almost twenty years ago. This one went better than the last time, in the same way that . . . well, you’ll just have to supply your own joke about something that was a miserable disaster the first time, but then was fine the second time. Then we got Chinese food (I had hot and sour soup, a dragon roll, and a silly drink called a Fog Cutter) and a little walk and a little drive in the dark. I do love that man.
And I love having kids who can put together a meal at home! They cooked, ate, cleaned up, changed the baby, and organized tooth brushing before we got back. IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. All you need is five teenagers.
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THURSDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, hot pretzels
I was completely wiped out by dinner time, so I asked the kids to deal with it. It seems I forgot to buy extra bread for sandwiches, so dinner was on the feeble side. Oh, well. We were supposed to have string beans from the garden, but nobody felt like picking them except for the really incompetent ones.
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FRIDAY
I think spaghetti.
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And it’s time to start thinking about last hurrah of summer meals! Or maybe special eclipse meals. Or Perseid meals. Whatcha got?
We’re still running! A Couch to 5K update
Back in April, I wrote about the Couch to 5K program, which aims to transform sedentary people into runners. Seems like time for a little update.
We did complete the program. We’re still running, and we don’t intend to stop. I mean, we stop and go home and have lunch and stuff, but we haven’t let a single week go by without running, and most weeks, we run three, four, or five times. Today, we ran 2.5 miles, which is the longest distance we’ve done together.
I know. That’s not 5K! Well, when you get close to the end of the Couch to 5K program, it starts giving you the option of running for a certain distance or a certain time, and we always chose time (I think it ends at 31 minutes of running), falling short of the suggested distance. Once the program was over, we focused on keeping up the habit of running regularly, rather than upping the ante. Some weeks, being sick and busy, it was a struggle to get a mile in three times a week. We just wanted to make sure we didn’t stop just because the program was over.
And we are slow. Slow as hell. But we are gradually increasing the distance we go, and are working our way up to a 5K run in the fall, when it will be cooler. In New Hampshire, there is no such thing as a flat route, so we always end up trotting up and down, here and there, on dirt, on pavement, on gravel, and on grass, and some of the hills are killers. There are frogs and flaming orange salamanders in the road, and turkeys and turkey buzzards angrily launch themselves into the air as we pass, because we are annoying. We talk about the kids and politics and sex and what will become of us all, and what we want to have for supper. Occasionally we have a little fight as we run. Sometimes, I’m wheezing and gasping, and I just focus on not stopping or throwing up. Other times, it’s fluid and almost euphoric, and I feel like I could go forever. The weird thing is, it’s very hard to predict what kind of run it will be.
It’s far, far easier to run before 10 a.m., when it’s shady, the air is dry, and there’s a little breeze. Humidity makes running awful. But nothing feels better than being done with a run and knowing that, whatever else happens that day, you didn’t quit.
After we finished the program and proved to ourselves that we’re sticking with this thing, we bought ourselves some new shoes. We went to an athletic store, where they measured our feet, watched us walk and run, talked about our routine, and then gave us a variety of suitable shoes to try.
I settled on a pair of New Balance shoes (W860PG7, if you’re interested- see photo at top). They’re not too stiff or heavy, but are much more structured than the Walmart $15 pair I had been using. They are nice and wide, which I need for my feet that have splayed out after being barefoot and pregnant for almost twenty years. They don’t feel all that much different when I’m actually running, but my feet feel perfectly fine the rest of the day, which is amazing. With my crummy shoes, my feet were always sore, and sometimes I felt stabbing pains in my soles. These NB shoes have a pretty firm medial post, which apparently keeps my feet from pronating, or rolling inward, which makes your arches collapse or something. I wasn’t really listening, but it sounded bad.
The shoe people noticed similar issues with my husband’s feet, and he chose Nike Air Zoom Structure 20s. His feet feel better while he’s actually running, and he has less trouble with his ankles and knees during the day.
Each pair cost over $100, which kind of knocked the air out of me; but we figured we were paying partly for the guidance; and also we don’t spend any other money on running. We just run, and want to keep running. So it’s cheaper than a gym membership, and cheaper than physical therapy from running in crap shoes.
Other observations: Don’t skip the frickin warm-up, even if you’re in a hurry. Among other benefits, it gets your lungs going, so it’s not a horrible shock when you suddenly launch into a run and can’t breathe.
-If I’m struggling and getting tense and taking short little choppy steps, it’s helpful to think to myself, “Light and loose. Light and loose.” I need to remember to use my whole body and to be as fluid as possible, and that makes it easier to keep going.
-Always go pee one last time before you leave the house, even if you don’t feel like you need to.
We both have bad days and good days, and we don’t always match up; but when we do run, the rest of the day is always better than the days when we don’t run. I find myself thinking it’s reasonable to take the kids to the beach after dinner, rather than just flopping on the couch and turning into upholstery. I try to remember to offer up the run for different people’s intentions.
As I can’t seem to stop mentioning, I’m still pretty fat. I’m just not ready to stop eating mashed potatoes, is what it comes down to. But I feel so much more confident. My back never hurts anymore. I sleep well most nights, instead of almost never. My knees and other joints, despite everyone’s dire warnings, feel fine. My husband and I are alone together for over half an hour three times a week. And nothing, nothing, beats that feeling of starting something hard and scary and keeping at it until it starts to feel easy.
Yep, we’re gonna keep running.
Cash in on curvy before the bubble pops!
Listen! Did you hear that? It was the floopy sound of body fat peaking as a social issue. In about ten social media minutes (which is the equivalent of forty dog years. Unless they are dogs who know how to surf. Then it about evens out), not even grad students blogging in pale yellow letters with a black background are going to want to talk about fatness anymore. Quick, while it’s still a tiny bit trendy, let’s cash in and corner that curvy market.
Okay, maybe it’s a rounded corner. Which is every bit as beautiful as right angles. Every. Bit.
Here are my ideas, and you can have ’em:
Curvy Spirituality I don’t know what it is, but it will make a million dollars. The gift pack comes encased in a pink naugahyde binder with a little inflation valve so you can Plus Size Your Blessings™. Other possibilities: a Biblical cookbook expansion pack. From Eden’s Fruit to Ezekiel’s Poop Cakes: Salivating Your Way Through Salvation History. Something something milk and honey. I dunno, this needs some work. You’re smart, you’ll figure it out.
Beach Towel Bellio. It’s like a little patio for your belly, see? You want to lie down on your side on the beach like all the normals, but your belly floops over the edge of the towel and gets all gritty in the sand because you just had to listen to your husband and get a tankini, which does come with high-waisted bottoms but which is not magic. No bueno!
Well, no más. Just affix the terry cloth Bellio (believe it or not, that name has not been trademarked yet. I checked) to your beach towel with the velcro tabs (included), spread out your accommodating new Bellio, and your tummy stays comfy and dry, at least until someone accidentally steps on it. Bellio is not responsible for stepped-on bellies.
BMI Bechdel Test. I guess this could be an app or something. If you want to bring in that coveted demographic of females size 18-32, your movie must include at least one woman with pants size in double digits, and, if she is in a relationship with a man, his attitude toward her pants size must not be featured as a major part of his character development. Seriously, he doesn’t get any medals for being in the same room with the gal sporting a bra extender.
Also he can’t be gay. Nice try, loopholers.
Curvy Music. Again, I don’t know what it is, but I know people would buy it. If there’s a market for German Reggae and Horror Country, then there’s a market for Curvy . . .
You know what, just stop everything and listen to this German Reggae.
Is . . . is that a dulcimer?
Curvy Barbies. Oh, wait, we already have these. Everyone was very enthusiastic about them last year, because these dolls were going to Fix Our Daughters. Right after they were done being fixed by playing with dolls that shriek, “STEM is cool!” every time you pat them on the ass.
So I was at the Walmart yesterday with some time to kill, and what did I see on the clearance rack? Rank upon rank of Curvy Barbies, all proudly hippy, all sporting thighs that were physically capable of supporting a torso, all tarted up just as whorishly as their rail-thin sisters, all beaming mindlessly into the stratosphere . . . and all unsold.
Dammit, I think I missed the wave. Hold me! Comfort me! No, not like that! Bring me some sour cream, you fool.
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Image: decal on Amazon. Please do not buy this decal.
I kinda look pregnant, and I kinda don’t care.
Warning: Lady essay ahead.
Today, while we were running, I asked my husband, “Okay. Do I look pregnant?”
He got that blissful expression on his face that husbands get when their wives ask neutral and in-no-way-dangerous questions like this. I added, to ease up on the poor guy a bit, “Sometimes. In some clothes. Do I?” And he said, “Yes.”
Message me for our address, so you can mail him his medal for courage.
And then he told me how beautiful I am, and how much progress I’ve made since we started running. Which is true, and which I expected him to say. The thing that surprised me was how little it hurt to hear him say that I look pregnant.
I gave birth to our tenth child almost two and a half years ago. I had a bad year last year and gained a bunch of weight, and now I’m working on losing some of it. I’m running several times a week, eating less, and correcting a lot of bad habits and bad attitudes surrounding food. But I have this solid, poochy belly. I see people glancing at it, wondering if I’m pregnant again, and I don’t blame them.
I guess I have diastasis recti, or separated abdominal muscles. All those little unborn savages weren’t content to eat all my nutrients, suck the calcium out of my teeth, permanently jack up my hips, and turn my brain into gruel; they had to tear apart my muscles from the inside, too! The ingrates! And now they want a ride to the library!
There are special exercises you can do to heal your diastasis recti. They’re not terribly hard. I’m already in the habit of exercising, so it wouldn’t be that difficult to do some abdomen work. But I just, deep in the heart of me, don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like I need to be “healed” of having a poochy abdomen. It’s not that I’m proud of my belly. I’m not big into that “Yeah, bay-bee, I EARNED these tiger stripes and if you don’t say my stretch marks are BEAUTIFUL than you are RAPING MY SELF WORTH and I WON’T LET THAT HAPPEN DO YOU HEAR ME?” stuff.
At the same time, every cell in my body, every corner of my soul utterly lacks the motivation to make it appear that I haven’t had ten children. I don’t enjoy being a fatty. But there are so many worse things I could be. I could hate my body, or be filled with self-loathing, or feel that I don’t deserve love because I’m a size 18. And I don’t do any of that. I’m taking care of myself, and I feel pretty good.
This is by no means a condemnation of women who are working hard to get back into pre-baby shape. I think you ladies are amazing. I will freely admit I’m mostly just too lazy to even look up the exercises, much less do them faithfully. I don’t think there’s anything morally superior about leaving my tired muscles alone, and I don’t think that losing belly fat is a sign of self-hatred. For some women, taking on the challenge of getting back to pre-baby shape is the right thing for their mental health, maybe even for their spiritual growth. Maybe they just want to look nicer. Yay, ladies! I’m sincerely impressed!
But for me, at age 42, married almost twenty years, sending the first two kids off to college . . . I’m moving on to the next stage of my life. Where I am, it just doesn’t seem important to erase all evidence of the previous stage of my life. I had a bunch of babies; I look like I had a bunch of babies. So what? I’ll buy brighter lipstick and go out anyway.
Check back with me in a couple of weeks, and I’ll probably be all teary and desperately scrolling through shape wear reviews. Right now, though, I feel kind of like a moderately strong, moderately attractive, moderately confident woman who doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about belly fat. It feels pretty good.
I’m sharing this because maybe you don’t have anyone in your life telling you that it’s not the end of the world to be fat. So here I am telling you: It’s not!