introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Strange Curves ten o'clock. - twenty ninth of april, 2001-in the crispness of spring night air "the ice is thin, come on, dive in underneath my lucid skin."~sarah mclachlin alright. so. i've had a lot of time to myself these days; a lot of introspective moments. such are my ponderings: when did i learn to despise my body so? when did the words first bite into my memory? who do i charge with taking away whatever positive self-conception i had in the beginning? did i even really have a positive self conception? surely i did...there was a time when i was about eleven that i thought that i had nice arms. eh. it doesn't matter anymore, i suppose. i imagine that there will always be faint vague shadows of memory to remind me of what other's have said in the careless moments when words are tossed out thoughtlessly, uncompassionately. i imagine that i have been equally guilty of the same crime numerous times in my life. but, as bob says, "the times, they are a changin'." I'm at a point in my life where those unfeeling cold razor words that only served to reassure the deep rooted belief that, because i am a big girl...because, really, i am a fat girl....i am ugly...i am at a point where those words and thoughts plauge me less and less; those words seem to fade in truth as i learn to enjoy myself and the beauty that i do indeed possess with a little more abandon. i've been catching my reflection in mirrors or reflective shop windows. there were years when i looked and was always critical of what i saw; who isn't? there were years...chunks of time as large and thick as i...when i looked and hated what i saw. but lately, that seems to be fading. lately, i have been catching my reflection and falling more and more in love with the unique creature i see looking back at me. i don't want to passionately cut her hair off to go with the face she despises or hide her uniquely curvy body behind sack cloth sweaters.
this morning, i took another long shower. i took the time to really look at and think and ponder the body i have spent many uncomfortable years trying to change and alter and hide from the world. the sunshine is bold today and i opened the window and felt the soft breeze join me in the small bathroom. i turned the knob on the faucet, hearing the water splash into the tub, marrying cold and hot in a perfect temperature balance. i like the water to be extremely hot. i have for years....since that first shower after all of that pain. sometimes, i feel as though i'm still rubbing away the dirty stains he left behind, invisable on my skin. sometimes, i feel that the water still isn't hot enough to disolve and rinse away the smell that still reminds me of him...a musky unkempt scent. i still take my showers hot and i still hope that someday, the ugly memories will wash away as well. i stepped into the shower, pulling the shower curtain along the steel rod, watching the rollerballs move easily along the old metal shower curtain rod that is starting to rust a bit. i listened to the sounds of the tape whirring quietly from reel to reel peacefully in the player and i hummed along, singing quiety with the music in my head, but not aloud. i live with two other girls. technically, i live with three other girls, but the third...she really lives with the recycled-glass hearted boy, now. when you put any number of girls together that share one bathroom, i'm sure that you will most always find a buffet of scented soaps, shampoos, body washes, shaving cremes, facial soaps and cleansers, and bubble bath. its a strange phenomenon, the way people can be so different and can overlap in taste. brian once said that a lady selling candles told him that people are either fruits or flowers, meaning they were into that sort of scent. if that were true, i'd definitely be a flower...i think? i love scents like hyacinth and lilac. But I know i also like the smell of grass, water, a good smelling man, green tea, baby powder, orange, pear, and nag champa. so...where do those fit in, exactly? i, personally, have a small array of scented soaps and shampoos and body washes, facial soaps and cleansers at my disposal that i use according to mood. if i were to list them, the list would include Kiss My Face products like the patchouli body wash, Be Well: a hemp-citrus smelling body wash, and some neutrogina stuff that jennifer love-hewett (puke) was pushing a summer or two ago that my mother bought for me a long time ago. i've got pear-mango scented shampoo which seems to be an endless bottle because of my lack of any substantial hair, the new energy rush scent of Zest soap, a half used-special occasion bar of nag champa soap, one old pink schick razor with the refill option and a new glistening green jewel schick razor, also refillable (why don't i buy the refills? cuz its damned cheaper to get a whole new razor.). i have two kinds of face washes that smell sort of chemically but that seem to work nicely. i have a marroon coloured poof because, what girl would really be complete without a poof on a string? there are four hooks in the shower that i stuck up on the plastic shower wall when we moved in. there are four poofs dangling, one from each hook, along with various suction cupped razor hoops and long rusted disposable razors collecting and staining a shelf. my shower is a very comfortable place. hell, my whole house is, really. but the bathroom, in spring and summer and early fall, when the windows can be open...my bathroom is lovely. the colours: a lemon yellow toilet, an avacado bathtub with a seat at one end that serves as a shelf for four girls' worth of shampoos and soap, a worn marble sink, and a new royal blue carpet that jess and i put in one afternoon last september. the floral rail around the wall has been well covered with political bumper stickers. i've decorated with some bathroom comics of Tank Girl who is adorable. across the top of a mirror, one of the mantras that i printed out and taped around the house when we were all feeling especially mood affected by the long, dark winter: "don't frown," it says. "you never know who is falling in love with your smile." (Jess hates for me to stick things on the mirror, but she never took that down. I think we all needed to see it on occasion.) But where was i? ah, yes.... i pulled the plug in the faucet that turns on the shower and felt the spray dart across towards the opposite end of the tub. I let the first splashes of cold dissipate and stepped in, feeling the hot water stream across my bare skin. i stood directly under the streams of water and turned my round head up, backwards at the old showerhead and ran my fingers through the hair that isn't there, feeling it saturate the half inch blanket over my head. i felt the curves of my skull under the thin skin if my scalp and as i poured a bit of cool shampoo into the cup of my pink palm and felt the lather as i massaged my own head, cleaning and enjoying. see, i have never really enjoyed spending time with myself like this. sure, i enjoy a hot shower, but i never give myself much thought. i like the feel of the ends of my hair against my fingertips and palms. i like the smell of pears. i tilted my head back again, feeling the small river of sudsy soap slide easily along my smooth skin down my neck and down the center of my back, past the curve of my buttocks and down the back of my legs before it swirled down the drain. i began the lathering process again with some face soap. i imagine that people think that i put a lot of time into washing my face because i never really had a bout with scarring acne through puberty and my skin is very soft. i never really did anything special. my mother always says that my skin reminds her of porceline and, because i have always had a hard time believing such things in the past, i always stare at her and tell her to leave me alone. but secretly, i am proud of my skin. i think the first sense of that said pride came one night at the end of summer. brian and i had gone to a county fair for some cheap thrills and entertainment and, as we walked to the car in the darkness, it began to rain. it wasn't a hard rain, but more the gentle sprinkling that gets heavier and heavier til the thunderstorm finally reaches. my skin was wet but not drenched and i suppose i must have been glowing in the dim light of the temporary parking lights that they'd put up in the field for saftey reasons. brian turned to me and, in the voice of a person that i trust, told me that my mother was right. i do have nice skin. sure, i still sometimes think...i've got nice skin. but i sure have a lot of it. sometimes, i am self-defeating. i lathered the soap in my wet soft hands and scrubbed gently at my face, feeling the curve of my jawline, the span of my forehead, my fingertips nudging at the edge where forehead becomes hair. i gently massaged the soap into my t-zone complected nose, feeling the bump of cartilage that is my father's nose. i am lucky, i remember, when i think of my nose, that i got his nose. my sister and brother have my mother's nose: long and large and portruding. when i look at pictures of my sister, sometimes, all i see is her nose. i carefully washed around the tiny stud in my nose, pulling at it and twisting it slowly, making sure it was still in properly. my fingertips moved along the vastness of my round, chipmunk-like cheeks, feeling the spherical shape tough with smiles under my hands. i swiped the lather along my round chin, below lips that love to be kissed; below lips that have a doll shape to them but that dot once said were not full enough to signify a kind hearted person. i remember hating my lips when she said that, but they are my lips and i'm glad that they are shaped the way they are. they are kissable and i have since learned not to rely on the shape of a person's lips to tell of their kindness or compassion. i've learned to look a little deeper. once again, i tilted my head backwards, my hands still rubbing and massaging the flesh of my face and, as i turned my h ead up and felt the water rush over my skin and rinse the soap away, i washed my throat and neck, feeling the stretch of flesh that isn't as tight as other throats in the world. my fingertips ran along the neck that i have always perceived as short and stumpy and thick. it thins, in summer. it thins when i am depressed and forget to eat. i felt the water and with each moment, i slowly put away the thoughts that have bothered me for what seems like forever. i slowly fell in love with my body. and so it went...along thick limbs: longish arms that melt into slimmer wrists where the bone juts slightly as if to remind me that there is a skeletal frame beneath all of the skin and pads of flesh and down to the tips of my thick fingers, three of which enjoy bands of silver rings and all of which have set in them fingernails, short and clean like my grandmother's instead of long and painted like my sister. On i went, then, reaquainting myself with the curve of my breasts, nicknamed by number, one larger somewhat larger than the other with soft large nipples five years pierced...five years that i can hardly remember what it was to have them bare...along the curve of my back and down my spine to where back becomes buttocks, large and round like a titian painting....over my belly and further down my fleshy torso to the soft inside of my short rotund thighs and the soft pubic hair...the sweet smelling soap lathered me slippery behind the backs of my dimly scarred knees, along the thick muscular legs that are strong from pedaling my bicycle, down to the strong ankles, bedecked with ankle bracelets and the soft, not quite summer-worn soles of my feet, between my very short toes with the painted small toenails. and as i stood under the water, then, peaceful and serene, feeling the heat slowly turning cooler, i closed my eyes and felt myself within myself. i closed my eyes and felt more at peace with the body i live in than i have in some time. and now, as i sit here, i ponder. the sun has long set and the sky is completely clear. the waxing moon shines my shadow on the ground when i go outside to look at the stars. and as i sit here, i ponder how spring is really autumn in reverse...and that the further along we go in days, the further from winter blue i am, and yet, the closer to the next season we become. and i ponder then, that i will be in a new state, with another new beginning because today, i was born again in a sense. i remembered who i am and what i am and that i am beautiful in a non traditional way. i looked deeper than the inches of flesh i live behind and saw the beauty of the person that i am. so yeah...i'm bigger than most of the girls on the block but i'm a person, just the same. and yeah, i'm probably never gonna fit into those skinny skirts that my roommate wears, but then, i'm not gonna miss how she is forever cold because i've got layers to keep me warm. there are upsides and downsides and i'm learning now, as i grow older, that there is beauty in just about every single thing i know. that thought makes me happy. i took the time to get to know myself again and to see the beauty that is in me that others can see in the shine of my smile or the sparkle of my greenhazel eyes. i'm in love with someone. i'm in love with myself and all that i can be and accomplish and feel. i am happy. completely happy. be well, cats. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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