At Last, Summer
Sep 15th, 2007 by heidi
Today has been the sort of day you wish for all summer and, in Manchester, very rarely get. It all seemed a bit depressing, early on, as Ciaran woke up at 5.40 for the third morning in a row (for no apparent reason) and I thought it was going to just drag along. Thankfully, he played in his playpen for an hour, meaning I got a decent sleep this morning and was also able to nap with him during his first nap.
Graham’s sister, H, has been traveling around Europe for most of the summer running a little cafe at music festivals and paying her way by making crepes! She’s back from her adventures now, so came by once Ciaran had had his lunch and we headed out to Barbakan deli in Chorlton for some lunch of our own. Every Saturday Barbakan does freshly grilled bratwurst with fried onions and a selection of other yummy selections for meat-lovers. H is a vegetarian but isn’t terribly fixated on it ethically-speaking (she just doesn’t like meat), so had some fried potatoes, despite their having been fried on the same grill as the sausages, and a Mediterranean vegetable sandwich. Graham and I both had bratwurst and Ciaran pitched in to help us eat them; the amount of stodge that boy can pack into his belly is astonishing, especially as he’d already had lunch!
We then headed down to the bakery on Beech Road, where H and I both picked up “Death By Chocolate” bars, Graham bought a white-chocolate florentine, and an apricot and oat bar was purchased for Ciaran, although he has yet to eat more than a bite of it.
Tummies full, the next stop was the park, where we ended up spending nearly two hours in the end, I think! Graham alternately played Frisbee with me and kept Ciaran busy. It’s funny but despite the presence of slides, swings, a mini-football, and other baby-friendly toys, the thing Ciaran was most interested in was the gate to the fenced-in play area. Of course.
Now I’m in our living room, typing this up as Graham and Ciaran nap. I’ve had a lovely snack of nectarines and blackberries with strawberry yoghurt and granola. I feel relaxed, sated, content with myself and the world around me.
I was an active child, for the most part, until we moved back to the US and I found solace for my culture shock in books. Even then I loved to swim in our backyard pool and probably was a lot more active than I realised at the time with so many people hassling me about my size. Looking back at that time and photos of myself, I am shocked that people could have been so critical of my weight. When I was nine, my very best friend in the world, Marisa, was the only white girl my age that I knew. She was very thin, coming from a naturally thin family, and comparing myself to her, I thought I was hideously fat. No one bothered to correct this impression, one I now know was completely false as I look at pictures of myself then, a tanned girl with sturdy arms and legs who was equally at home climbing trees as poring through the pages of a novel.
I learned to hate my body at an early age. My grandmother, well-meaning but not particularly sensitive to my incredible desire to please and impress the people I cared about, was always on me about how much I ate and what size I was. My father was equally critical, in his own way, and although he frequently talked about going out and getting involved in more active pursuits, rarely followed-up on them. He bought us tennis racquets but after taking us out to play once, never again went. He bought us new bicycles and then, after what seemed to me to be a miles-long bike ride on a hot day that prompted my first real asthma attack, never took us again. He was, and is, a workaholic and his love for us tends to show itself in his role as a provider; it is only now, as he approaches late middle-age, that he understands the need for nurture in other ways.
The attitude of my school PE teachers is a longer story for another time but suffice it to say, no one ever bothered to teach me to enjoy activity. It was something to suffer through, a time to feel embarrassed and miserable.
Playing Frisbee with my husband is something altogether different, something fun. Activity that gets my heartrate up but that I can actually enjoy at the same time. There is no pressure to be perfect; laughing at our mis-throws is as entertaining as the game. I like kicking a football at him, like the fact that instead of criticizing me for the things I do wrong, he compliments me when I do it right.
I hope Ciaran learns to enjoy his body in the way that I stopped doing after the age of nine. I hope that he never has to go through body-hatred the way that I have because no child should!
It’s been a lovely day. I hope we will have many more like it!
