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| Whitney Thore |
Whitney Thore is a dancer who, in her
late teens, inexplicably gained a lot of weight. By the time she received a medical
explanation, the emotional damage had been done. She did overcome it, though. Still obese, she puts videos of herself on
You Tube and does street dancing to promote positive body image. In this interview, she said she didn’t know loving
oneself could be so subversive for a fat person.
I postulate that society considers self
love subversive for all of us.
I thought myself clever, giving up self
doubt for Lent, even concluded in my last post that it made me a better person. As the Lent Prohibition progresses, however, shame
speak-easies crop up all over my psyche, remind me of how many times I fell flat
on my face. It’s actually shocking, the
negative messages contained in one human skull, and how few come from actual Bad
Things I Have Done.
F’rinstance.
After a party we gave, a guest
apologised for not spending more time with me.
I smiled that sweet smile Appalachians give when someone says something stupid. Although he’d spent most of the party in another
room, he’d managed to criticise my weight three times.
His rude comments, exhaled breath that I
inhaled.
 |
| Speak not of Tuilleries |
I run into a friend after spending my birthday
in Paris. She pushes my trip aside so she
can talk about her life. Not
particularly interesting aspects of her life.
The same old, same old. Whether
she considers me a bore or is a crap friend, her message is clear.
Shut
up, Lora.
I am silenced. I am erased.
Then there’s the mother of three special
needs children that folk around here say mollycoddles her kids. They also call a man weak because his mentally
ill ex-wife keeps taking him to court. This
mother and ex-husband, victims of circumstance yet unable to evoke sympathy
from their neighbours.
Why?
We’re not weak. We don’t molly coddle. Who cares if you went to Paris when I had a
nice ramble across the moors?
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| Too fatolduglyskinny |
The unfortunate consequence is that some
people stop talking because we can’t be bothered to listen. Other people won’t be in family photos because
they’ve been told too many times how fatolduglyskinny they are. Folk in dire circumstances stop asking for
help because they’ve come to realise it was their fault anyway.
This has been one of my most difficult
Lents, trying to fight the demon Self Doubt.
I’m not able to say what is true about myself and what is protective salt
thrown over someone’s shoulder to land in my open wound. For the moment, I feel displaced from my
life, from my Self.
Silenced.
