Terrapin Station

Body dysmorphia

As someone with eating disorders, I've never really comprehended the true contours of my body. It's complicated. But overall, I generally tend to feel that I am super overweight, no matter how true that is, or is not. 

So here's the crazy thing. 

Yesterday, I took Nash to the local pool. First time there for both of us. She has seen me in a swimsuit many times, because we like to use the hot tub at my house together. So, I got over that "not wanting to be seen in a swimsuit" with her, a long time ago. It is what it is. She needs to see lots of women's bodies, lots of shapes and sizes. (That's how I talked myself into it.) 

We walked into that pool and I shed my covering shorts and shirt, and not once did I feel self-conscious, ashamed, etc. I didn't realize it until we'd been there a while. I just hadn't thought about it. When I did...I looked around. There were women there of all shapes and sizes. I was not the largest or the smallest. It was not about me. 

We had a BIG time! Playing with a kid in a swimming pool is definitely a workout! She went from being afraid of the little slide - to climbing up it and then climbing back down - to sliding down for me to catch her - and finally declaring, "You don't catch me this time!" and sliding on her own. (She had on a life jacket.) 

What a huge step! What a growing up! What a sense of freedom!!

And I feel like I took a big step, too. 

Is it just living into my age? Is it that I was entirely focused on her and NOT on me? I don't know. But we're gonna go back to the pool some more! 

Wanna come?

One Thing

One of my earliest memories is sitting in the old sanctuary at The Episcopal Church of the Ascension, Houston, next to my dad. On the Gospel side, about halfway back. I must have been fidgeting because he leaned over, pulling the pen out of his shirt pocket, and handed me his service bulletin, saying, "Draw me a picture."

On Sunday, I had the strangest sense of déjà vu as I leaned over to a 6 year old acolyte and asked, during the sermon, "Would you like to draw me a picture?" She nodded with a quick smile, and these are two of the results. The upper picture is "a whale and her baby" and the lower one is "the life cycle of a seed." (see the bee coming to the flower at the end?) (6, she is 6, six.)

I love this so much. And I love that this parish encourages inter-generational ministry, so that I get to know some kids that I really wouldn't, otherwise. It's balm to my soul.

I haven't had much to say on social media in the past week and a half. It's been brutal for several reasons. The election; the conversations/hatefulness following it; Ken was very sick & in the hospital (but is now fine) and on and on. I just felt smushed. 

Yesterday I sat with a friend at our weekly coffee date and we said, "What are we going to DO!?" All I can think of is, each of us needs to do one thing. Of course, "ALL THE THINGS!" would be better and faster.

But I think that if everyone picks one thing to add, one change-for-the-better thing, and does it really well, we can get somewhere. And we can always do one more. 

I know this works, because for many years my "get out of yourself" solution has been going to the grocery store and putting away carts. But I'm not sure that's what's required here. 

One thing options: 

Donations to a variety of causes

Securing links to the best and most trustworthy media 

Making calls

Finding like minded people who are doing something and joining in with them

Volunteering - anywhere. Anywhere. 

Here is a great article that has good ideas. 

How-To: 

I don't think something that I already do "counts." So acolyting and stuff at church is great, and gives me the opportunity to feel wonderful. But OTHER things. New things. 

Sit first. Pray first. Center first. This has always been true, but it is more true than ever. If I am not the most "me" I can be, I won't be able to be any help to anyone. 

Self care. Because, what I just said. 

I hope you all are being kind to yourselves and each other. We're all we've got. 

 

 

 

 

Whole 30, Day 30

Well, Old Army, I made it! This is the last day of my Whole 30.

It's odd, because it's Ash Wednesday, and tomorrow I'll be coming off of a fairly radical food plan. I didn't plan it this way...it just happened.

I seem to be unlike many folks who have done Whole 30 in that I don't have glowing results to share about Tiger Blood (feeling great!) or lessened inflammation (my knees are still mad at me). I have actually been pretty depressed for much of this time (partly situational, certainly). Note that many adherents of this food plan would say that I should do a Whole 45 or Whole 60 - that is, stick with it till things get better. Maybe...but not now. Not for me.

But I didn't start this because I felt BAD. I wasn't having ongoing problems with sinus, insomnia, etc. I started this because I wanted to reset my system away from additives, preservatives, added sugar, and to see what effects other foods might have on me.

The Take-Aways:

Things I won't miss:

• I didn't like eating so much meat, and I am very much looking forward to going back to beans, especially my friends the black beans; and also brown rice and quinoa. I have also missed plain Greek yogurt (I will, of course, add all of these back in a measured way, to see whether there is some type of reaction.)
• Whole 30 is EXPENSIVE. Jeebers.

Things I liked, and will maintain:

• Staying away from processed foods, and trying to eat as much whole food as possible. The graphic above is amazingly accurate.
• Eating breakfast EVERY day, even when I don't feel like it. I feel MUCH better with some protein in the morning (I am a lifelong breakfast skipper). I loved not getting hungry from meal to meal.
• Staying away from sweetener in my tea and coffee. I never drink soda, so that was already gone.
• I lost 8 lbs.
• Spending mindful time planning and cooking. It's virtualy impossible to do Whole 30 without that. I want to keep on doing it, for our health and for our budget.

I am grateful for the weight loss, and for knowing that I could complete this large challenge.  I'm committed to continuing to work on the weight. I just saw a lot of photos of myself from the RevGals cruise, and I was horrified at how this extra weight looks on me. :( I'm very good at not seeing it most of the time. But I know many friends who feel the same way about themselves, and when I see them, in pictures or in person, I see no such thing: because I am looking with eyes of love.

While continuing to work to make my body healthier, I want to work on looking at my own image with the same sort of love, because God made me in God's image. And that is why this is a good thing for Ash Wednesday, and why I chose this poem for the Ash Wednesday prayer today.

 

ps: Grateful to Wil Gafney, whose cranky Lent blogpost reminded me of these words:

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made…

I'm off to Ash Wednesday service to hear them in person.

 

 

 

It gets better for lots of people in lots of ways

I dreamed last night for what seemed like a long time, and I woke up remembering it.  And that means that it's worth paying attention to.

In my dream, I was hanging out with R., my gay boyfriend from college.  I have had a number of gay boyfriends.  Not in the "he's out and proud, and we love to go shopping together" way, but in the "he's not out to you and maybe not to himself and certainly not to his parents" way. Because, you see, this was 25-30 years ago.  No one knew, then, that It Could Get Better.  No one talked about it at all.

In the dream, he was trying to set me up with another guy.  I was wounded and angry and didn't understand why!  When I woke up, I did: he was trying to put me with someone who  matched me in terms of orientation.  And he was trying to remove himself from an impossible situation. 

I can't blame R. for that (even though nothing like that actually happened in our relationship).  We spent a lot of years with him telling me that, although he'd had a relationship with a man in the past, he didn't think he was actually gay.  And I was willing to believe him about that, and work with him on it.  We actually got engaged one night at Bonfire; you may be sure that there were definitely happy-making substances involved. Hope Springs Eternal, no?

Several years after we were in college and he was out to me, R. took his life partner to his parents' house for his birthday, and they brought in a stripper.  A female stripper.  Oh, yes, they did.  I saw the video they made of it.  It was torturous to watch.  His parents had been told but could not accept it. Horrible for him, for his partner.

And, in general, the whole messy set of situations, not very nice for me. 

In high school and college, I had also dated men who were not gay, some seriously, and so I had a realistic idea of what heterosexual men were interested in.

And yet, I kept getting involved with guys who needed a beard, or couldn't even imagine being gay, or whatever.  At the time, I wasn't sophisticated enough to understand or suspect any of it.  In fact, I remember vividly the first time a guy I had dated came out to me, and it was utterly mind blowing.  Because, back then, that didn't happen.  There was no Gay Straight Alliance at my school (or anywhere that I knew of!).  There were folks I knew in high school who turned out (later) to be gay, and I said, with the vantage point of later "well of course they were," but there was not a single indication that I was aware of about that at the time.  If they were bullied (and I'm sure they were) I was oblivious.

It was like the 1920's or the 1850's or something.  "The Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name," I knew about it, but I had no sense of the reality of it that surrounded me. 

In my undergraduate work I did a Technical Speaking class and my major project was on Ryan White, the little boy who got AIDS from a blood transfusion and whose local school district wanted to ban him.  They didn't understand how AIDS was spread and they were afraid.  In my presentation I said (based on my research) that up to 10% of the population is gay, and my professor said, "Oh, now, that can't possibly be true."  She was utterly SHOCKED by that statement. 

I, on the other hand, was at that time going to the local gay bar with R. and his gay friends (yes, you can say it: "REALLY MB?!  You still thought he was going to turn out straight? REALLY?!") and there were always A LOT of people there.  Note that it was very well hidden, no signage.  We were always on the alert in case there was a raid.  And we always drank beer from bottles, never cocktails, because of AIDS, because we were afraid. 

Afraid, afraid, afraid. 

What I gained from these associations (besides a lot of fun and great friendships) was a lot of confusion and frustration.  And fear: what was wrong with ME? It had lasting effects.  I still struggle with them. 

So when I hear about my friend's wonderful high school daughter who is a straight ally in her school's chapter of GSA, I am absolutely thrilled.  That young lady has friends who have been aware of their real orientations for years and who have had allies to stand beside them. I'm not saying they have it easy, or that all the GLBTQIA kids are out, but the information is there.  The It Gets Better Project is there.  The Trevor Project is there.  Glee is a major national TV show with gay teenage characters.  There are other groups and organizations, and most of all, it's part of our national conversation.

It gets better.  When it gets better for them, it gets better for us.  Because we are all THEM and they are all US in some ways. 

 

Enough-ness

Over at RevGalBlogPals' Preacher Party, folks are talking about the Gospel of John  (6:1-21), the feeding of the 5,000 with the five loaves and two fish in a little boy's lunchbox. 

I love this story, for the presence of a child and the consideration of his meager offering (no offering is to small, no assistant too weak).  Ah, the immense providence of God as I understand God!

From The Message, vs. 10-14:

Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." There was a nice carpet of green grass in this place. They sat down, about five thousand of them. Then Jesus took the bread and, having given thanks, gave it to those who were seated. He did the same with the fish. All ate as much as they wanted.

When the people had eaten their fill, he said to his disciples, "Gather the leftovers so nothing is wasted." They went to work and filled twelve large baskets with leftovers from the five barley loaves.

The people realized that God was at work among them in what Jesus had just done.

In a comment at the post, regular contributor Diane shared this:

Here's a story from my pre-seminary lay service days.

We were having an evening Vacation Bible School that year, with a supper planned each evening before our lessons. However, no one stepped up for the last evening, so someone suggested that we do a Loaves and Fishes potluck, have everyone bring a bag supper, and put them all together to share. When the time came to open up all the bags, one little girl had taken a great big bite out of her peanut butter sandwich, because she was afraid that she would not have enough if she shared.

However, others brought in surplus, and it turned out that there was more than enough to feed all, even a couple of strangers who appeared off the street (something sort of rare in our neck of the woods.)

So many times in my life, I am the little girl with the sandwich: will I have enough?  How will I get enough? 

Yes, I mean this metaphorically, in terms of security, money, love, retirement accounts...but also literally, in terms of food.   I've struggled all my life with disordered eating and body dysmorphia.  My "enough" is broken.  Also my "hungry" and "full."  In the part of this society where I live, there has never been a question that there will be enough to eat.  Unlike in Jesus' time, I do not go to bed hungry for lack of food...but for much deeper and creepier reasons. 

While I am much better than I have been in years past, things are not great right now.  I know some of the steps to take, and one of them is to be honest about it.  We're only as sick, as they say, as our secrets. 

If the little girl at the potluck had understood the concept of the Loaves and Fishes meal...that all the food would be opened and shared, and that everyone would see that she had bitten the sandwich...I'm certain she would not have done it.  She thought, I imagine, that she was borrowing from her OWN sandwich.  A perfectly normal thing to do.

People who have a strange relationship with food like mine do not want to admit it, and they certainly don't want to be seen in public with it.  Mine tends to ride on my shoulder and whisper in my ear...and it does so almost exclusively after my DH has gone to sleep of an evening. 

I wish it was as easy as this cartoon:

If it were, I'd have been done with this crap years ago. 

As it is, I will be pondering "Enough-ness" and how to feel it.  Pray for me, if you would. 

The island within myself

The Blooming of the Lotus

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Smiling to my body I breathe in
Releasing the tensions in my body I breathe out.
Breathing in I go back
To the island within myself
There are beautiful trees
Within the island
There are clear streams of water
There are birds
Sunshine, and fresh air
Breathing out I feel safe
I enjoy going back to my island

Source: Unknown

From today's InwardOutward

It wasn't until this hit my inbox and I breathed in (as it said) then breathed out and thought of an island, that I realized, I now have a definite place in my mind that is "my island."  I haven't had much previous island experience...all Gulf-Coastal. 

Mackworth Island in Falmouth, Maine is one of the places where we took Sam, The Dog, for a walk.  It's beautiful and magical:

(All images from Flickr)

Perhaps one of the magick-est things about it is the grove of Fairy Houses:

(John Alphonse)

 (Stuff Tah Do In Maine)

 

I'm grateful to have this new place in my heart and mind! 

Shields up!

I have been doing energy work/body work with an amazing Teacher for three years now.  It is phenomenal how much progress I have made and how much more able I am to stay grounded in my body, and identify when my body is reacting to something in my environment.  It keeps me better able to stay relaxed, stay healthy.

As you well know if you know me, though, I am often "on the ceiling" so it's not perfect yet!  One effect of the process has been that my natural tendency toward being an empath is increased, and I am often caught off guard and plunge into someone else's drama (or other stuff).  

So now, when I head into a situation that I know is likely to be stressful or difficult, I say to myself, "Shields up!"   Yes, just like in Star Trek.  I get a little giggle from it. 

When I return to my office or other safe zone, I have to remember to take my shields down.  One of the reasons I am good at my work, I think, is in what ability I have to listen to and understand others. 

It's an image that works for me now.  Along with the breathing.