The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

I've noticed myself, as I've been losing weight, being more judgemental about the overweight. That's very not nice of me, and unfortunately, very true. I suppose that you can't devote four months (so far) of your life to something and expect to stay exactly the same in your viewpoints, but still, I try not to be judgemental.

So anyway, I have a lot of chances to look at overweight women in the bead store. Beading attracts middle-aged women, who are often overweight anyway, and, beading being a fairly sedentary hobby or activity, may even foster being overweight all by itself.

Our shop is in a basement, so you have to go down steps to get into it. The way the place is set up, as I sit at the counter, often the very first thing I see coming down the stairs is a belly, or at the very least, a spare tire. Not attractive. It was, in fact, one of the things that inspired me to do this--I didn't want to be one of the women coming down the stairs belly first.

I still believe, for the record, that you don't have to be a string bean, or a pin, or even the bean pole itself, to look good. You have to have a sense of style, a knowledge of what looks good on you, and a lot of chutzpah, but you don't have to be skinny! Having said that, you also don't automatically have to become a slob when you gain weight, which is what so many women seem to do. Sigh.

I was starting to think that I was in the process of turning into the weight Nazi, anyway, when a woman came in yesterday. She was emphatically not small, but she was emphatically not a fat blob, or slob, either. She probably took a 2x. She had a shape, she was not extravagently dressed, in fact she was wearing a sleeveless, low-cut top--but it FIT HER, so she didn't look skanky, either. She had a tattoo on her chest, about where the pendant of a necklace would hit, and that drew the eye. She was cheerful, outgoing, self-possessed, and very attractive. She gave me hope about myself. I could embrace her being able to embrace herself. So I was relieved. I'm not a bad person, or at the very least a crank, after all.

I spend a lot of time looking at women in Northampton. It's known for women, after all, since it's the home of Smith College, which, in turn, is sometimes known as the home of the Four Year Queer--women who try other women for their time there, then go back to the regularly scheduled program. You see an awful lot of women with different takes on femininity, sexuality, body shapes, body pride, and style. There are the lesbians who have decided to be ersatz, or not so ersatz men--they have men's haircuts, carry their wallets in their back pockets, and bind their breasts. (There are also women who are transgendered--on both sides--in general, the male to females are enjoying being girls, the female to male have receded into a work-clothes garbed sameness). There are lesbians who are clearly happy to be women, but have their own take on it--a woman yesterday with what was, by any standard, a crewcut, shopping for pearls to make herself a choker. She was far from thin, but she was composed, self-possessed, and even in her t-shirt and shorts, carried herself well...as I say over and over and over--attitude is all. Anyway, there are women who have decided to embrace their inner Venus of Willendorf. I find Venus of Willendorf just a tad off-putting, to be honest. She reminds me of my downstairs neighbor, after my daughter was born, who looked at me and said, "A motherly body...that's nice...." I thought, yeah, well, if you think it's so nice, you have one, but I kept my mouth shut.

Women, to go on, who've had mastectomies and decided not to wear prostheses. (This bothers me because I'm a Libra--the imbalance distresses me on a basic level). Women who remain chic into their 70's. Women who are crunchy-granola, with long frizzy gray hair.

Oh, and while I'm on this rant that only peripherally has to do with weight and weight loss--my message to every single woman in America--

GET A GOOD BRA!!!! And if you can't get out to get a good one right away, pull up the straps on the one you've got!

Anyway. The young girls. Some are anorexic, painfully thin, waxen. I look at them and wonder how they can think long enough to choose beads. And then the young girl today, quite obese, panting with the effort of having walked down our stairs. She made me as sad as the anorexics. And the little Japanese and Chinese girls, tiny and exquisite. And the African and African-American girls, often a bit fuller-bodied than the others, in a way that makes you know they're supposed to be that way, not just that they fell into a bag of Doritos and never came out.

You can tell who's at ease and who's not. Who likes her body for what it can do, and who despises it. Sometimes I can tell so clearly, I just want to say, you know, you're fine the way you are, just let up on yourself a little.

Women and their bodies...we all need to make peace with ourselves, every morning when we get up, with the women that we are that particular day.

End of rant.