Fidelity | The Things They Never Should Have Said

I have my own list, you have yours.

That horrible thing someone said to you that you will never forget. You may have been a child and someone said you needed to shave your legs because they were hairy and you hadn’t even realized that was a thing yet. You may have been in high school and someone told you your nose was big, and you had no idea until it was pointed out to you. But then you knew. Or it may have been last week when someone made an offhand or ignorant comment about your size—or a comment about “thin, beautiful” people, which indirectly implied something about your size...and attractiveness.

Regardless of when it was, we all have them. And some of them haunt us more than others. I have a whole slew of them - you know of my most recent “thunder thigh” incident. Talking about it makes it easier - mostly - but it doesn’t change the fact that I am more aware of my thighs now than I have ever been in my life. It also doesn’t change the fact that my thighs have nothing to do with who I am, so to have my external appearance pointed out to me in such a negative, identifying way just makes me feel conflicted and confused. Because when I’m not looking in a mirror, I feel like I’m just me. Quirky, insecure, funny, moody, intellectual, empathetic, cynical me. But when me becomes my abdomen that’s not flat, or my legs that touch in the middle, or my breasts that aren’t perky and small, or my incessantly dry and patchy skin, or my unbrushed hair, or my unique body shape, then I am not me anymore, I am my imperfect and aging body. And I don’t believe this is who I am. I don’t believe your body is who you are.

So, let’s take a lesson from our own tormentors. Think about the words that are coming out of your mouth - even the flippant and playful words. One little statement from you could change the way he sees himself for the rest of his life. It could cause her to have a complex over that “one little thing” you always pick on her about — in good fun. It might just add one more thing to their list of things they’ve been told they should hate about themselves. And that is probably not your intention - unless you're evil, or 12.

So how about this? How about we not comment on people’s bodies, people’s skin color, people’s imperfections, people’s “flaws”. Because that’s what they become to them: flaws. How about let’s promote love and care with the words we speak to our friends and to strangers, to our family and to our enemies, to people we envy and to people we loathe.

How about let’s not be their 6th grade story, their high school bully, their co-worker that one time, or their 12-year-old on Belmont Blvd….

Remember: You are not your hairy legs, you are not your big nose, and you are not your thunder thighs.

Those are the things they never should have said.

Fashion | "There Are No Ordinary People." -C.S. Lewis

One random day during my high school career, I was standing in a group of socializing people (which was odd for me in the first place) and decided I needed to go, so I said outloud to the group, “I’m outtie!” because I had recently watched Clueless and wanted to try out the phrase…

No one heard me...but I was still outtie.

I would consider myself an individual—one who doesn’t need the approval of others, marches to the beat of my own drum, and I’ve almost always been this way—but even I am and was affected by everything I see—in films, on television, on the news, in my home, out at restaurants and public places. Everything is making an impression on me.

I loved Britany Murphy in Clueless. I loved her Ugly Duckling to Belle of the Ball transformation. And I wanted to be like those girls. As much as I would never be like those girls (it is genetically impossible), I tried.

Late high school is when I began to become aware of myself—what I looked like, my body, the way people interacted with me—and I started to care too. When I was a Junior, I decided I wanted to be thin, so I became obsessed with eating very little and running, doing an exorbitant amount of sit-ups every evening and weighing myself incessantly until the magic number was reached.

It worked. I became thin. I liked the way my clothes looked on me, I liked the size of the clothes I was wearing, and I liked the number on the scale. I wasn’t perfectly content of course, but who is?

I went away to college, and began to interact with people in a completely different way. Basically, men were interested in me—they found me attractive and therefore wanted to talk to me—wanted to listen to me talk. I had never experienced this kind of power before, and while at first I was naive to it, I soon became subconsciously (and then consciously) aware of what was going on and learned to wield my power very carefully and to the end that I wanted.

In the long run, Beauty and Thinness equaled attention and respect from men and often other women; so without it, I was lost in the world. I had no power, no place, no respect, and often no basic human civility.

I spent years beating myself up over it—trying to look a way that would gain favor with people was becoming harder and harder to achieve. I still daily notice when people are kinder to me if I have makeup on or heels, or when they don’t speak to me if I’m in my comfy clothes or looking a bit unkempt in my glasses, hair a mess.

It’s something we all do, right? Judge people by their appearance. And sometimes it’s real. You can actually know real things about people by the way that they look. But this—what I’m talking about is not the same thing. You can’t assume anything about me by my weight. I mean, you can, but you’ll probably be wrong. You can’t know anything about me as a human being by the clothes I threw on today. I mean, you can probably tell that I don’t adhere to the widely held societal fashion guidelines, but that doesn’t mean I should be treated any differently than the woman in front of me who looks like she just left a photo shoot. You can’t know one thing about me or my intelligence or my worth as a human by my subjective or objective external beauty. You do understand that since I have not had any reconstructive surgery, everything about the way my face looks has nothing to do with me and has everything to do with my parents hooking up some 32 years ago, right? So, why is beauty so important? Why do I treat people differently when they’re "drop dead gorgeous" or super skinny and have a svelt bod? Why can’t I take some time out of my day to get to know the person, the human, who for right now is walking around in that particular body that he didn’t choose, but must live in. That includes the “beautiful” and “thin” as well. Everyone. Why can’t we all start at the same place: Human.

This is the grace I am trying to give…to myself and to every person I see.

Fidelity… and Fitness | Yoga is for Yuppies

So, yoga.

I've been going to a studio here in Nashville for a few weeks. And I visited another one in East Nashville a couple months ago. I'm not a Yogi or anything (I aspire to be, but I haven't been able to practice faithfully), but I've found something sort of disturbing in these Nashville studios….

Right before I moved from Chattanooga a few years ago, I had the opportunity to practice at North Shore Yoga for a couple months —What a lovely experience that was. I found the studio calming, respectful, and I also got an excellent workout. Then I moved to Winston Salem, North Carolina where I wanted to take Hip Hop Dance but never had the nerve to go through with it…at 30.

Now I'm in Nashville—and the hot studio I visited in the East part of the city as well as this power studio I'm visiting now both have one thing in common. No one has ever heard of yoga!

I mean, apparently. People walk in talking, throwing things around, yelling and carrying on about Thanksgiving recipes and what happened at work today and I'm in the back just trying to get my Shavasana on. Then, during the practice, people are laughing if they can't stick a pose, talking to their neighbor, and generally NOT "finding peace with the divine"…and neither am I because I'm so distracted by the social aspect as well as the intense physical/competitive nature of the classes.

I thought yoga was for hippies—people that don't shave, or bathe, or care what you think of them. This yoga is not like that. These people are busting a power pose, and I am struggling to keep up while trying to remain calm and cool and true to myself.

Now, let's be real, I know almost nothing about real yoga. But, I know this isn't it! And I want more meditation and silence and less Colbie Caillat and lululemon gear. I love a good workout—I am a bit addicted to the whole being drenched in sweat when I'm finished thing—but can't there be a happy place that is more true to the heart of yoga and less obsessed with our American version?

What is your experience with yoga? Do you find it peaceful and healing or stressful and overcrowded?

Femininity and Fidelity | Thunder Thigh Thursday

October 31, 2013, the very day after I posted my last blog, Thigh Gap Hell, the hubs and I decided to go out and meet our neighbors. I baked cookies for 5 hours that morning (in the kitchen!), and as the evening approached, we donned our costumes of "Belmont Blvd Runners" and hit the street. Towards the end of the evening and after a night of wonderful introductions and receptions from our lovely neighbors —who were delighted to receive fresh baked cookies—we stumbled upon one of the largest, most sumptuous homes on Belmont Blvd. We approached mostly because there were about 10-15 middle school aged kids out front, and I was also handing out candy.

As we walked up to them, my eyes locked with one young girl. She was about 12, brown hair—I smiled, she looked me in the eyes, then she looked down at my legs, pausing at my black yoga pants, she elbowed her friend standing next to her and yelled at a volume I still cannot comprehend, "THUNDER THIGH THURSDAY!" and started laughing.

My first response was disbelief. I couldn't believe it was happening, but then when she continued to shout it loudly, I became very embarrassed. I have never been verbally bullied in my life, but I instinctively reacted like a victim: I tried to get away from her, not look her in the eye, and basically disappear. It wasn't working, and L had no idea what was going on. He was talking to some other children, so I had to pull him away and tell him I needed to talk to him. I just needed to get away from her. It was horrible, and I consider myself lucky but also naive to have never experienced this before.

In that moment, my fears about societal pressures on women's bodies were confirmed—when a child judges a stranger based on the size of her legs, and ridicules her in front of others—we've lost our way. What’s going to happen in a few years when this girl’s body starts to change and it’s no longer realistic for her to maintain a 3 inch gap between her thighs? How much will she hate herself? Or worse, what if her body retains it’s pre-pubescent shape—how poorly will she treat those around her? She’s twelve. And she made fun of a stranger. Me.

Processing this is a difficult thing. I was instantly self-conscious about my thighs, which as I mentioned in the last post, I’m normally not. I felt weird and sad and less significant as a human—as a woman. Then I felt angry that anyone could make me feel this way about myself, much less a 12 year old.

Turns out, that house is the one we were going to for the party we'd been invited to. So we had to walk back through the children to get to the front door—I knew she was mocking me the entire way.

At the conclusion of the night, L and I came home, sat on the couch, and tried to talk through it. Why did it bother me so much? Why does it matter what she thinks? He reassured me that he loved my thighs. A lot. And that I was beautiful. That made me feel a bit better, but I am also pretty self-confident. I don't like everything about my body, but I do love my body because it is beautiful and young and shapely. Now. But what about some day when it's not? What about when I am self-conscious about my thighs because they are larger than I wish they were. What will I find solace in then? What about the people who don't have a Levi - or don't love the shape of their own thighs? What do they lean on when they overhear someone talking about them, or see that group of girls giggling as they walk by? Must we have external affirmation? And what if there is no hope for external affirmation ever? Is there a one-size-fits-all healthy response to body-bullying and body-image self consciousness?

I don't have answers. I think quick, cliche answers are empty and do nothing. I think this is deeper and wider than we are able to explain away with feel good-inspirational-spiritual sayings.

So until I know what to do with this, I will be celebrating Thunder Thigh Thursday. Every Thursday.

Fashion, Femininity, and Fidelity | Thigh Gap Hell

Read this article first for context, then come back:

Why The Dangerous “Thigh Gap” Trend Makes Me Mad

First of all, if she’s considered a “plus size” model, we’ve got other problems. But we’ll take one topic at a time.

Thigh Gap. I didn’t know it was a thing—a fad until about 8 months ago. Not sure how I stumbled onto the phrase, but I found myself searching the hashtag thinspiration (which oddly enough doesn’t autocorrect). It was devastating, and it was all real people dedicating their entire Instagram feeds (and in turn, their lives) to being thinner than they currently are and having an unrealistic gap between their thighs while standing up. Apparently, shortly after my discovering it, it began to get some negative press, so Instagram banned the hashtag; but the idea lives on under countless other hashtags like: thinspo, thinspogram, thinsporational, and thinspoquotes. It’s actually disturbing. On my phone, I clicked on the thinspo hashtag and this warning popped up.

I’ve had body image and eating issues all of my life. I would label myself a compulsive eater—which includes obsessive dieting—but the majority of my issues, I kept a secret. I remember in high school measuring my stomach with my fingers and having a goal of lessening how much of my fingers my belly covered when I laid down. I never told anyone about this, but I obsessed over it. These girls are a community. This behavior is socially acceptable and praised in many circles. If you're not skinny, you're not perfect. It’s destructive, and they’re all in pain. They hate themselves. They say so on their pictures, but they all feel the same way together, so it’s ok…?

As a high school teacher for 8 years, I ran into a lot of body image issues. Sadly, many of the girls even received pressure from home about how they should look. Girls told me their parents pushed them to work out, were strict about what they ate, and they, in turn, felt bad or guilty, and were unable enjoy tasty food or “splurge” on something high in fat. There is a stigma that goes along with women eating in general and eating “bad” food specifically. (We’ll discuss that in another blog.) But it starts at home. I think a woman gets much of her relationship with food from her family life, the way she was raised, and her mother’s relationship with food.

I think about my body daily—what it looks like to me and to others. I know it is a waste of space in my brain, but this is still something I fight all day long. I don’t have a specific obsession with Thigh Gap, but I obsess over other parts of my body. All of this comes from what I’ve been fed my entire life. We’re surrounded by magazines, media, tv, movies, pornography and highly sexualized images that all say women should look a certain way—it’s deeply ingrained in us.

For now, the only way I know how to fight this is 1. not giving in myself and 2. talking about it with others. Talk about how it’s crap, and it’s doing nothing for us as a society or as a gender. It’s actually breaking people down and ruining more than our self images, it’s ruining Our Bodies—our ability to have children, to be healthy, Our Minds—self-worth, the way we treat others, Our Reputations—the fact that people stereotype women as vain and self-absorbed (true in many cases) while rewarding them for it. If we’re spending time using our brains and energy to think about our weight, the number inside the jeans we just bought, the gap between our thighs, if we can put our hand around our entire arm, if our ribs show through our skin, how far our hip bones jut out or if they show at all, what we had for lunch and then dessert and then snack, and how much of our fingers our belly covers when we lie down on our side—if we are putting energy into this or judging others for failing to meet our impossible standard, we’ve lost sight of our humanity.

We’re better than this.

Femininity | Shake Rattle and Roll!

“Get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans

Get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans

Well roll my breakfast 'cause I'm a hungry man

I said shake rattle and roll…  I said shake rattle and roll

I said shake rattle and roll…  I said shake rattle and roll

Well you'll never do nothin' To save your doggone soul”

Yes, those are the lyrics to the classic dance tune from the 50s made popular by Bill Haley & His Comets. Who knew that “Shake, rattle, and roll” was referencing pots and pans? And cooking?!?

Cooking and Kitchens are touchy subjects with me - especially right now, as a new wife. I didn’t grow up cooking or in the kitchen, except to do my occasional chores of washing or drying the dishes. Other than that, I had no real desire to cook or bake or create with food. My mother never pushed me to, which I am thankful for, and my life went on just like anyone else’s. During college, I ate from the cafeteria (or binged on dry hot chocolate mix). After college, I lived alone for nearly 10 years, and I survived perfectly fine. I rarely cooked. I ate fruit, cereal, nuts, oatmeal, Chinese takeout, and sometimes I cooked up a chicken breast. But, making food was never an interest of mine. I love food, don’t get me wrong (I’ll write more about that later). But making said food is just not in my skill set.

Enter Levi Wiggins. As soon as we started dating, I discovered that he was an excellent cook. Not only did he love to spend hours in the kitchen creating food and beverages, but it was unbelievably delicious when he was finished. I couldn’t have been happier with this; he loved to make meals, and he loved that my interests were elsewhere. Throughout our dating relationship, he cooked and I enjoyed every. single. bite.

Then we married. Suddenly everything changed, which is not what I wanted to happen when I got married at all! Levi’s job went full-time and my job ended. We were immediately put into a situation that I was not prepared for. He was working all day from home, and I was hanging around the house all day… also from home. It didn’t even occur to me that I might need to make some food for us—which reveals my naivete and selfishness. After about a week of living in our little upstairs apartment, Levi had to gently say, “You think you might want to make something to eat today?” I was shocked. And in my own little world, I felt like he was shouting the words of that demeaning song “Shake Rattle and Roll” to me. I was hurt. And no, I didn’t want to make something to eat! I’ve never done it before, I’m not good at it, he always did it, that was the deal, why would I do it now?!

I didn’t articulate those feelings at the time, but I went into the kitchen and began to ‘Rattle those pots and pans.’ I made things from scratch - things I’ve never made before, things I never want to make again. It was a rough week —for everybody. I was in the kitchen all day—from figuring out how to make 3 meals to cleaning all the dishes in between. I was angry and hurt. And Levi added salt to everything. I felt subjugated in a way I couldn’t fully express. I knew it made sense for me to cook - I didn’t have a full-time job, we needed food, but something was hurting me.

I talked with L. I told him exactly how I felt, and he listened. He understood. Even though he needs me to do some things in the kitchen, he knows it’s not my thing. And he agrees that it doesn’t have to be just because I am female. We have since found some alternatives. He usually makes dinner, and tries to make extra so we can have left-overs or some variation of it for lunch the next day. Also, cereal. Cereal for breakfast has saved my mental health. And I do dishes 3 days a week instead of every minute of every day, or putting them off for the week.

I’m just not wired that way, and it’s ok. There’s nothing innately feminine about cooking and serving food. How do bachelors survive? What about women who are physically unable? And why are most chefs men? (I’m down with it!)

In our house, we are learning and trying to live out roles that may not look like everyone elses’, but they work for us. I can and should cook sometimes because it is a service to my husband whom I love. He can and should cook sometimes because he loves to and it’s a service to me. One way is not better than the other - one just tastes better.

Femininity | Footwear

I walked in my first pair of heels in a Shoe Show in Hendersonville, Tennessee when I was 14. To my surprise, I was a natural. Not sure if it was the abnormally large feet that supported me or the sturdy frame of my non-athletic body, but I could walk in some heels. And I was so excited! Heels are a vital part of the rickety bridge from childhood to womanhood, and I was ahead of the curve, which was a big deal for a slightly frumpy and awkward tom boy.

For the next several years, I didn’t wear them, but when I got to college, high heels began to be a staple in my arsenal of accoutrements. I was coming into my own—finding I could be even taller than my already taller-than-average 5' 9" when I wore huge heels. I secretly enjoyed the attention of being the tallest one in the room. It was empowering yet feminine. I didn’t fully understand it then, but I knew I felt different and was treated differently when I was wearing crazy heels than when I was wearing something more comfortable and practical.

Over the years, I have worn way more than my fair share of heels—all kinds—crazy, strappy, wedgy, spikey, stiletto, basically anything that was high and drew attention. I didn’t consciously realize it (I don’t think), but it was there; I was using heels as a way to accentuate my womanhood—to have power over others but also seem helpless and sexy.

Bernard Rudofsky says “By depriving her of a secure walk she becomes an irresistible female. The cheeks shake, the breasts shake, the body lumbers and hops. The jutting abdomen, the staccato tripping, it is all delightfully feminine. . . . Every woman knows that to wear ‘walking shoes’ or ‘sensible shoes’ puts a damper on a man’s ardor. The effect of absurdly impractical shoes is as intoxicating as a love potion.”

Although I’m good at walking in heels, it still changes the way I walk. It makes my legs look “toned,” my steps are shorter, my posture is altered, I require assistance from humans and railings and walls to stay upright—my gait is completely changed when I'm wearing heels. Why? Why am I wearing shoes that make my feet and back hurt, cause blisters and sometimes draw blood? Who am I trying to impress, and what am I trying to tell them? When I wear comfortable sandals or my beloved running shoes, my walk is just a walk—there's nothing special about it, it doesn't attract attention, it just gets me where I'm going.

“An artificial feminine walk seems to gratify many psychological and cultural needs. The female foot and leg are turned into ornamental objects and the impractical shoe, which offers little protection against dust, rain and snow, induces helplessness and dependence. In an interesting double message of the sort that abounds in the exacting but not quite explicit feminine code, the extra wiggle in the hips, exaggerating a slight natural tendency, is seen as sexually flirtatious while the smaller steps and tentative, insecure tread suggest daintiness, modesty and refinement.” (Brownmiller, “Femininity”)

I’m beginning to think about the shoes I put on for other reasons than what I have been told to think is “cool” or “hip.” I’m starting to think about what I’m subconsciously but also consciously telling people by the shoes I wear—how I am perceived, and how much I value myself by the amount of pain I’ll endure to look a certain way. These are questions I’ve never asked myself before, but I think they need to be asked. They’re good questions, and I’m worth it. So are you.