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?

The Zoo Conundrum

My sister Nancy used to say:

(Capybaras, from the Animal Embassy)

You know how you go to the zoo, and you get to the Capybara enclosure, and your whole group says, "What in the world is THAT!? Is that a rat? No, it's too big for a rat. Is it a pig? No, it's too hairy to be a pig. Is it a beaver without a tail? No, that can't be right. Wait! Here's the information tag: (reads out info on capybaras)." Then everyone stands around and admires the capybaras, and talks about how cute the babies are, and how they are related to guinea pigs, and you had that guinea pig, remember?......

Then a new group of people come up, and you move aside a little bit, but you are still THERE. You are not done yet. And then the new people say all the same things that you just said. EXACTLY. And you feel scornful of those people, because are they idiots!? Also, those are actually kind of YOUR capybaras now.

That's the Zoo Conundrum. Because you didn't know a thing about capybaras before five minutes ago, but now you do, and you want these people to go away and stop looking at them! Clearly they are annoying the capybaras. And, of course, you.

...

So, I have a doctor, and I go every three months for a checkup. It's in Lewisville, which is not very convenient, and the construction traffic on I-35 is horrible. It is just 20 miles away, but today it took me an hour to get home and longer to get there.

The waiting room is about 11 x 11 and always full. Ugh.

I arrived on time for my appointment and was told it would be about 20 minutes before I was seen. I took a seat in the waiting room and started to read a Time magazine. There were children with balls, which I later learned the doctor had given them. Thanks, Doc.

Two of the women in the waiting room started to talk, and the one seated next to me had one of those voices that you could hear through the wall of a submarine. So loud. SO loud.

They talked about a great many things, including car trips in the US, camping, various states and their terrain, chickens, egg colors, vegan diets, curing your own cancer with vegan diets, child care arrangements, travel in Europe. Then they started talking about how important international travel was, and how EVERYONE HAS TO DO IT! Blah blah blah, Eiffel Tower, blah blah blah.

And I found myself experiencing the Zoo Syndrome in a way. Because I am 300% for the importance of travel; educational travel was my life's work for 23 years. Yet, because of my annoyance, I found myself thinking evil, evil thoughts about it all. Scornful thoughts. "What do THEY know!? If I went to the Eiffel Tower and they were there I'd leave forever!" Etc.

So, I updated my Facebook status:

"Stuck in the waiting room from hell with the most annoying people ever. Help."

And I got so many nice comments from friends, including my favorite from Eileen: "can you write a nice short story about it a la Flannery O'Connor?"

Aw, I wish I could.

But I've never been a fiction writer.

On the way home, though, I thought of how it was kind of like the Zoo Conundrum.

So there's my story. Clearly God is trying to tell me something. Perhaps to take the advice from Cynde's comment, "I've started carrying ear buds with me everywhere. Even if I don't listen to anything, they help."

 

Phonics

When I was four years old (or so they say), I taught myself to read.  My mom helped by labeling all the things in the house:  Lamp, Counter, Fireplace.  But supposedly I did the figuring out myself.  I don't remember it; I can't remember NOT knowing how to read.  I know that my little sister begged Mom to teach her to read too, which Mom regretfully could not do.  She was a speech pathologist and diagnostician, not a reading teacher...and she hadn't taught me.  I'd just learned it.

I learned it well enough, and got such wonderful enrichment work in my private preschool, that I was a freaky good reader by the time I went to first grade.  This was in 1970 or so, and before kindergarten was mandatory.  

We were sitting in a circle on the floor the first day (there were no chairs in this experimental school - have you seen my posture?!) and everyone got a copy of Fun With Dick and Jane...they struggled through, word by word, and I waited impatiently until it was my turn, and then I read the whole page. 

Everyone looked at me. 

In fairly short order, I was  booted up to second grade during language arts time.  This experimental elementary school had a system of individualizing learning by putting each student's work in a cardboard magazine box, and we turned it in by leaving the completed work there for the teacher.  It worked okay for me in that area, but was later disastrous in math...that's a different story, though. 

SO...

Mrs. Fowler, who was the LA teacher, one day gave me a phonics lesson and some phonics worksheets to do. 

And I could.not.bear.it.  I didn't like phonics, didn't understand it, didn't need it, and it took my beautiful letters and words and made them horrible and ugly.  "Schwa."  Isn't that an UGLY word!?  and the symbol representing it is not better:  

UGH. 

So I ignored the phonics worksheet.  And Mrs. Fowler left a note, "Mary Beth, please do the phonics worksheet." 

So, um...

I threw it away. 

And this happened several times. 

I don't remember exactly what happened, but I'm sure that eventually I did the horrible worksheet.   I never liked phonics, did my best to avoid it. In college, as an English major, I loved the part of Linguistics that was about the history of languages, but it was all written in those damnable symbols and I hated it. 

And moving ahead to my life today, I find that pattern continuing...the avoidance of things that I feel uncomfortable doing...that I fear I might be caught out as a fraud...the unwillingness to ask for help. 

I'm just saying. 

 

Touchstones

Yesterday I was reminded powerfully of my brother Bill, who died on April 6 last year.  Late in the afternoon, I had an unexpected phone encounter with someone who sounded - just - like - him.  The tone, the challenging manner...took me right back to a scared place in my childhood.  (This makes it sound like my brother was an ogre, and he wasn't; it was how I reacted to him...a little girl who felt powerless against such a strong personality.)

Then I met Ken at a local watering hole after a crazy work day to decompress.  He was at the bar when I got there, and was being served crawdads (yuck).  As I sat down next to him, a fairly drunk fellow leaned over me to comment on the little mudbugs.  I looked right into Bill's face, I swear it.  Same hair, beard, teeth.  It was shocking.  We headed outside (to get out of the smoke) but I wondered ... am I supposed to be getting something here?

Last night, I dreamed that I adopted two babies (about 6-8 months old).  One of them was happy, but one was scared and crying, over and over.  She wanted to go back where she had been.  By the end of the dream I soothed her and, I hoped, helped her understand that she would be safe with me and she would not have to leave again.  I woke up sweaty - hard work. 

This morning plugged in my IPOD to charge.  An interview with Tennyson's band, RedLefty, came on and I am listening to it as I do this early morning post.  His voice in that good place and time, his exuberance and his laughter give me courage to face a challenging day. 

As Byron Katie says, if I have a problem with someone, it's because of the story I am telling myself about them in my head.  What's the story here?  Stories?

Food for thought. 

Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and Life

I used to think that the first name of Mr. Douglas in Green Acres was "Ollee-vah," because that's what his wife called him.  Of course, his wife was Eva Gabor, and that's how she said the name, "Oliver."  I had (still have) an Uncle Oliver and was very surprised to realize they had the same name. 

I remember watching Bobbie Jo (the youngest Petticoat Junction girl) during her honeymoon with Steve the crop duster.  (They are hugging on this lunchbox...)  On their first day of marriage, she was very excited about watching him shave, which he thought was very weird.  I always thought that when I got married I would watch my husband shave.  Unfortunately, my husband doesn't like to have anyone in the bathroom with him for any reason.  So much for that!

Sometimes when I start talking and forget where I was going, my husband calls me Hank Kimball.  This is annoying but unfortunately rings true...! 

in a sort of unrelated but Internetty jump (thinking of these shows reminded me of hillbillies and the Beverly Hillbillies):

Do you remember The Foxfire Books?  My mom had a bunch of them when I was young.  I was utterly fascinated.  It was like the Little House on the Prairie books (of which I was a major devotee) all grown up.  Especially the one about midwifery.  I can remember asking my mom how they went to the bathroom in Little House times.  Because, they don't mention it in the books!  This sounds like I have a bizarre fixation, but truly I think it's an entirely reasonable question. 

Don't you? 

Doing what I WANT to do and not what I am SUPPOSED to do

Isn't that a funny idea, what you are "SUPPOSED" to do?  As if everyone "supposes" you will do it, so you are locked in.  (Who is "EVERYONE" anyway?  Well, I'll tell you.)

Here's Thanksgiving, right here tomorrow.  And what are we doing?  We are going to stay home, just the two of us.  Brandon had planned to go to Houston with his mom, but now he is going to stay here and have TG dinner with his friend/girlfriend's family.  Okay with me. 

We have been invited many places, the usual family ones and others, and with great love.  But we have said no, thank you.  I need some quiet time to get things organized (the home office is a wreck!) and to get Cmas decorations going.  I have 2 parties at the house early in Dec. and I don't want to be decorating the night before.  I plan to make steak for tomorrow's dinner, with homemade pumpernickel bread, steamed veggies and micheladas.

Like everyone, I imagine, my holiday expectations are based on what I grew up with, or at least what I liked about it.  Every Thanksgiving and Christmas for all my years through college, we either went to my Gramma Beth's house, my Aunt Emily & Uncle Oliver's house, or everyone came to our house.  And I do mean EVERYONE.  We had a BIG family and there would be 30 or 40 people, always including some "strays," poor folks who didn't have family nearby to go to on the holiday. 

So that's my tape.  You gather with family, you cook, you HOST.  That's where The Voices come in.  They are like a sneaky Greek chorus whispering to me, "well, what about this and that!?" 

Yesterday eve, as I headed out to the grocery, Ken suddenly suggested an alternate plan for our Thanksgiving...going somewhere we have been invited and taking along some friends who are new to town.  I told him I really didn't want to, and besides which, I didn't have time to get the food lined up on such short notice...He agreed. 

Then, as I drove, the place where my gall bladder used to be started twingeing (as it does when I am feeling angry, resentful, guilty) and the Voices started to whisper.  So I stopped the car and called him up.  Mostly to see if he had MEANT something different than what he said, when he said, "Okay, we'll stick with our original plan." 

Because, what if he REALLY meant (but did not say) "Fine, if you don't want to be a good Southern woman and entertain these poor folks who just moved here from Yankee land and have nowhere else to go...no family to be with on Thanksgiving..."

The insane part is, he doesn't generally say anything except what he really does mean.  It seems to be a guy thing.  OR just a him thing.  But those Voices...make me forget that. 

He reassured me that he REALLY meant what he had said.  I said okay.  But the gall bladder place and the Voices talked to me all evening.  I breathed into that place, and talked to everyone inside me, and wrote about it. 

Eating stifles those uncomfortable feelings.  I was not entirely successful in staying away from that fix last night.  Better than other times though.  Now I'm listening to Libby Roderick which always helps me to feel like ME. 

"How could anyone ever tell you You were anything less than beautiful?
How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle?
How deeply you're connected to my soul?"

Take that, Voices!  :)