« The poetree | Main | when i tell you »
24 de Febrero 2009
fat tuesday
i'm giving up bullshit for lent.
*****
when i was in grammar school we lived in a tiny house. four very angry people in a house that was built in 1906 as a summer home for a wealthy family from san francisco. the glass in the windows was watery and the walls were very thin. the house itself was near the top of a steep hill that froze in the winter so we slipped down it on the way to the bus stop every morning, often bruising our butts. if we were lucky there would be time to trudge back up the hill and change into clean clothes.
the hill street was a thin snake of paving, black top, one lane cutting a line up the hill. the trees were thick and if we took the paths they were sure to be muddy and brambled, rambling toward our single stop sign town through the thick of the riparian redwood forest. it took about half an hour through the woods to walk to school and you remembered to take a friend in case you met a drunk sleeping on the trail.
there was no hallway in that house, no central heating, just a few small spaces linked awkwardly by skinny doorways and anchored by a wood burning stove right in the middle of everything. we were literally living on top of each other and constantly falling onto the hot black stove. once i burned my palm so badly, trying to save the rest of my body from falling against it, i couldn't write for days.
you can imagine the clutter. books everywhere, bark from firewood carried haphazardly in, papers stacked, dust collecting, walls and ceilings always looking as though a new coat of paint was in order and i: the disorganized, chaos driven and agile, fragile member of the family.
i don't remember it well but my mother remembers what i have come to question.
i remember myself laden with jacket, sweater, rain boots, backpack, lunch box and umbrella fumbling in the cold or rain for the hidden key, unlocking the door, stumbling in and she remembers the trail of my belongings. she was rarely there when i arrived home; she only remembers my stuff strewn, like breadcrumbs, leading her from my point of entry to where i sat when she found me: on the bedroom floor, peanut butter spoon in one hand pencil in the other, math book in my lap, fisher-price record player spinning the lady and the tramp record--i was in love with peggy lee when she sang 'you're a tramp'. i was lonely and worried even then that she would discover me busy and make demands regardless.
i think now that what she calls the little trail of belongings bothered her because it encroached on her space. it was a reminder that i was out of control, taking up space, that i had a large presence in a small house.
think what you will. i haven't made her out to be a monster, but it wasn't pleasant to be treated as though i ought to be contained... or else.
i was always sort of in trouble, that's all, for taking up too much space, or being too strong, or not strong enough, i still don't know for sure.
i'm not sure when i began thinking seriously about what it would be like to be a very large person. i was tallest in my seventh grade class, i played center on the basketball team that year. but when we arrived for our first day of ninth grade all the other girls were taller than i was, their hair was longer, like their legs and even though they wore men's clothing i could see their curves were worthy of envy. it was probably around then that i knew i would have to learn to live as a smallish person in a world of impressive peers and huge family members.
i was painstakingly ambivalent, i dated a senior who must have weighed at least 160 pounds to my 100. i began greeting the boys of my posse by running and jumping into their arms, wrapping my legs around their torsos and arms around their necks trying to bowl them over, but knowing i wouldn't. eventually we all relished my ability to curl up and sleep on the bench seat of the gmc suburban or the seats in the bowling alley we went to every monday night. but i knew they would win when we wrestled and they knew to protect me at the punk rock shows we attended weekly.
of course i was strong. i lifted full cans of yard waste onto my shoulders and lugged gatorade coolers and canoes onto the banks of the russian river as well as anyone else.
and i was funny as hell.
so here i am, ten years later, still getting used to my real size, strength, presence.
this year for lent i've been celebrating fat tuesday: i had a huge breakfast at a fundraiser, four cups of decaf, half a brownie, a square of homemade caramel, hot chocolate, extra cheese on the quesadilla i had for lunch, and i haven't eaten dinner yet. i'm hoping amy will call and i'll eat at least half the nachos when we go out tonight. i think right now i'll go for a run and run farther than i have before, in the spirit of overdoing things before i batten down the hatches for lent.
because
it isn't that i want to be fat, it is just that i want to need to eat, i want to need fuel, to require complex carbohydrates and complete proteins, to take up space, not too much, but just enough to make a dent in the space between us, to move toward you without moving but by growing into you, toward you. not to take up your space but to take up the space you left for me that was just waiting for me to arrive, and fill it with my stuff, my crumbs and books and mess.
help yourself | By crymytinyflood | 3:37 PM
Comments
You are my sister beyond DNA. I hope you remember that. And - read your email!!!!!
Neesie
Posted by: AvalonMoon at 24 de Febrero 2009 a las 10:03 PM
