Hortus Deliciarum

We’ve been lucky enough, here in Seattle of the dreary, grey winters and the ever-cloudy skies, to have several days of beautiful, sunny mornings. This morning’s sunrise was a dream of Maxfield Parrish colors, with fire-tinged pink clouds against a baby-blue sky. Last night’s sunset, viewed over the Olympics, was exactly like a perfect watercolor exercise, shading from deepest burnt orange-red over the mountains to blue-purple haze. It’s been absolutely beautiful.

My appointment with the nutritionist went well yesterday. As I told her, something in the last couple of weeks has shifted in my head. The great, seething ocean of anxiety, rage, and fear is still there but the tiniest iceberg’s tip of peace has surfaced and I’m enjoying the ride, at least for the time being. My fury with the professor’s refusal to give me a single day’s grace really focused me, bizarrely enough, on how much I juggle. I work full-time (and commute another 10 hours or so on top of the 40 spent in work), parent a three-year-old, do two-thirds-time classes, and, at least so far, manage to live peacefully with my parents and preserve my marriage on top of it. I do a lot. Finally acknowledging that combination of things has made me feel that much better about myself, and who I am.

I sometimes wonder if the folks who are so anti-HAES, who spout vitriol against those of us who are fat (or not!) and dare to rebel against American stereotypes of what a woman “should” be, are angry because we rebel when they do not, hate us because we are learning to be happy in our skins, when they are not. Perhaps it is utterly inconceivable to a woman who weighs 150 pounds and bemoans how fat she is (or a woman who weighs 135 and wants to lose ten pounds), that someone my size truly is, at least in some moments, utterly comfortable with who she is and what she looks like. That must be the most terrifying thing in the world…to pin your entire self-esteem on something that you are NOT (fat) and have someone else say that, in the end, that’s an utterly meaningless part of who you, or anybody else is. My weight does not in any way define my value as a human being or my success in life any more than my hair color or my shoe size.

Moments of joy (or even contentment) have been very rare in my adult life, so finding them coming more frequently and discovering myself cheerful just for the hell of it is something nearing a miracle.