weighty

At the dinosaur museum I played with childlike abandonment in sandboxes and hands-on displays. I wasn't in the proper insecure-adult-female frame of mind when I jumped on the scale without my defenses in place. Due to this, the numbers struck me like a back-handed slap to the face. My jaw dropped. When Dad's turn came, he pronounced the scale accurate. I groaned with disappointment:

I am heavier than I have ever been. I know that it is completely unfeminine to discuss one's weight. So sue me. I weigh 162 lbs. I once vowed never to weigh more than 155 lbs, the weight at which I began my college career. Even 150 makes me cringe when the little red needle on the scale swings that high.

My senior year in high school was a miserable experience by and large. One part of it was the insecurity I felt about my body. I had gained ten pounds the previous summer, and I was just generally awkward. Instead of wrestling my body into submission, I accepted my feelings of inferiority. Part of the reason was Joyce's clandestine bulimia. I couldn't be the victim in a war with my body.

I lost the weight naturally the first semester of my freshman year. The ten pounds faded gradually as I walked around campus daily and as poverty limited my consumption. I've maintained a fairly steady weight with brief fluctuations of up to five pounds as holidays come and go; my body perpetuates the status quo without too much difficulty. I have typically worked on my feet, walked about town and spent little on food.

But now the driving, studying and Cafe Rio of the past six months have added up. The sum: approximately fifteen pounds. I am appalled.

The weight gain is unprecedented, and so must the reaction be. Heaven help me, I will diet and exercise. I commit myself to it here in writing. I give myself to the end of the term, 50 days hence, to lose fifteen pounds. Wait, on second thought let's make it ten: I'm new at this. That comes out to a pound every five days. Is that doable? I don't even know. Physically, I am sure I can make it, if I can discover any shred of self-discipline among my limited virtues. But I am rather interested in the emotional toll. Cognitive dissonance is practically a guarantee. I have prided myself on my amity with my body (see blog entry "self") and now I must focus on disliking my current shape and appearance. I must grant attention to my failures and insecurities. I chose to limit my diet to 50 days for this reason, and I intend to approach the experience as a scientific observation. We'll see how it goes.

I'm just a little sad that the numbers written across my mirror are counting down in reference to a diet and not for something to which I am looking forward.

ode to joyce

Joyce is home! She arrived back in town yesterday, and I wanted to squeeze her until she popped, which isn't entirely out of the question, given her condition. Her softly rounded tummy is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Unless she think that I love unborn Owen more than her, I'll say my favorite part of having her back is her hugs. It's true, too. Talking to Joyce is never uninteresting. She has a million things to say and most of them are quirky enough that no one else will ever think them, much less say them. It leaves her listeners with the distinct impression that she is irreplaceable. She's tons of fun. She is going to come to the dinosaur museum next week, and she always knows the weirdest movies. She's beautiful too. Her gentle sprinkling of freckles across her face makes her look vulnerable, even when paired with the piercings. Her hair is always the height of fashion, and I have wished before to be as cool as she is; but even if I had the clothes, the makeup and the haircut, I would not know how to use them the way she does. Joyce is a strange combination of punk kid and a mother. This was true even before Owen was a twinkle in her eye. Joyce takes care of people: she brings soup or ice cream as situations dictate. She has always been the mother figure to her weird friends, and I know she shielded me many times as we grew up, though I was the older of the two. She's going to be a wonderful mother come November. She's already making baby blankets and buying onesies. I can't wait to be an aunt. And in the meanwhile, I am very excited to be a sister.

dreams

I have simple daydreams. I envision them again and again as I fall asleep in all their intricate detail, but they are simple. Humble. I do not want palaces. I don’t even picture myself being rich and famous. I don’t want power or prestige or ease.

I imagine children and books, kitchens and gardens, and a husband.

I want to play with my children, skip rope with them, color in coloring books. I will read aloud with all the proper voices, and we will experiment with recipes. I will cuddle them and tell them I love them, and I will panic that I am failing. I want my home to be full of loving chaos: too many faces in and out, too many bicycles on the lawn and too many shoes at the bottom of the stairs. They’ll bring their friends over for rowdy games and family dinner. I want to hear first words amid indecipherable gurgling. I want to smell them after baths. I want to take too many pictures and watch them sleep on nights when I’m restless. I want to teach them to waltz, to take them hiking and to cry at their baptisms, weddings, or graduations. I want to be a mother.

My home will burst at the seams with books. In my lavish dreams, I have a real library with a dark leather sofa and dim lighting except for the lamp. I could retreat there to gorge myself on books. I’d go back again and again to beloved classics, and I will buy books because of their cover art. The room will get a little dusty, but it will be quiet—the only quiet room in the house. Maybe I won’t have a library. Instead, books will pile toward the ceiling, some laying sideways on top of others on random shelves around the house. And I will write my own books, wedging myself in whatever available corners to type out the stories parading in my head. Characters will come alive through my words, words that will likely remain forever in the dark of my personal scribbles. That will be enough for me: knowing these worlds intimately, even if no one else every will.

I want to cook, to make my kitchen a central place for family gathering, not a secreted corner of utility, but a vibrant heart of the home. I will bake. If I am poor, I will discover ever new and ever more-creative uses of pastas and beans. I can make casseroles. I will make sandwiches and cut off crusts. I want to monitor the health of my family and fool them into eating what they need.

I want to dig in the dirt. Weed, water, trim, transplant. Surround myself with life.

I want to marry, to be a wife, to belong to someone. The faceless man I picture in my future is my best friend. He and I talk about things: sad things, happy things, serious lets-make-plans things, and goofy I-overheard-this-today things. We’ll be partners. I want him to value what I do during the day, what I think about the books I read, my opinions on joint decisions. I hope he thinks I am beautiful and sometimes can’t keep his hands off me. Our children will be embarrassed by our kissing. When we fight, I hope I want to be the first to make it up. I want him to be dedicated to God first, me second, the family third—those above all else. I want him to remember little things, just to reassure me. I need reassurance sometimes, and I don’t expect that will change. I want to remind him why I love him. I want to pray together.

I don’t know if I will ever have any of these dreams. The crossroad I face at graduation is unrelated to my ultimate hopes. But how can I say aloud what I want next, when saying makes me so vulnerable? I must make plans with the options presented to me .I may get a job, or go to graduate school. I hope to do the latter, to study a subject I continue to love. And I will get fulfillment out of personal growth, while I wait and work to make my real dreams come true.

hades and persephone

Persephone in lighted meadows bred
Fair daughter of the Harvest Queen above
Lord Hades, midst the darkness of the dead,
On seeing good Persephone he loved.
Abducted from her world of golden light,
She feared the dark and Hades love denied.
He offered her his kingdom of the night,
With fruits of love wooed her to be his bride.
Redeemed from hell, she sat in fields of bloom
And tasted fruits devoid of nectar sweet,
While Hades, hunched upon his throne of gloom,
Found darkness for the first time incomplete.
Twixt Lord and Maid, a cherished wish: ere freed
Persephone had eaten every seed.

giant

Giant, above the crownéd temples stand,
Across thy brow flies Helios’ flamed chair,
Prometheus hath laid his flown torch there.
Bowed Atlas is not mighty as thy hand,
Which reins desire and wants no reprimand.
Avoid Pandora’s pain, and patience bear.
Thy valor, champion of virtue fair,
In battles win renown of Ares’ band.
Adonis and Apollo stand apart:
No demigod Olympians need I
When Paris’ gilded apple falls to thee.
Good Giant, pardon me my mortal heart,
If it like Icarus aspires too high,
Or waits like banishéd Persephone.

jerk-sitting

The other night, I sat up to ridiculously late hours commiserating with a friend on his recent girl trouble. I was magnanimous, as even he would attest. I let it slide when he made gender stereotypes and when he said I couldn't understand the depth of his pain because I was too young. I was the best sympathetic friend anybody could ask for. And how did he repay me? By going on to delineate why he didn't want to date me. I know he doesn't want me, else he would have persistently asked me out by now; and heaven knows my heart has not wept for him; but still! still you don't tell a girl how little you get excited about her. I don't know if I can make excuses for him. Sure, maybe it was the late hour, or his melancholy disposition, or the pain of recent rejection. Or maybe, he's just an arrogant jerk, who really does think only in terms of himself. Thank goodness I have a sense of humor about these things.

falling over emails

I felt rather nostalgic this evening and spent an hour perusing old emails. Just reading the words sent over two years ago makes me smile. I floated afterward, just as I did when I first received them. It's wonderful the way memories and emotions can be recalled and relived. And it's amazing how badly I fall each time I indulge in them. These emails are a treasure I cherish.

I only wish I were allowed to express these feelings, but I feel like there is a taboo placed over the words. There are no norms or mores to guide my behavior in my current situation, so I have to rely on the outmoded ones which restrict expressions of affection to the level of formal commitment. Otherwise I would send emails often where I spoke candidly. Especially tonight I want to send one in gratitude for all of the ones that have come before: I still fall in love with you through your writing. But I can't say it.

In that way, rereading these old communications may have been a good thing: at that time too I was hampered in what I could say explicitly. But every day, I implied it, and he knew. So, I will work on my subtleness once more and recapture that elusive honesty and playful affinity, that I may look back in later years and enjoy them as much as I did their predecessors tonight.