Bodyscape

While her friends avoided scales and reflective surfaces and endured self-imposed hunger strikes, Cindy enjoyed gazing upon her naked form and smiled as she ran her hands over the peaks and valleys of the landscape of her flesh. Her mother, who subsisted on yoghurt and daily sessions at Curves, had waited anxiously for Cindy’s “baby fat” to disappear until she was 15. Though her mother continually sucked in her stomach and called herself a “a big fat toad”, she never used the word “fat” with Cindy, choosing instead to refer to her as “plump.” At night while the local news droned on, Cindy dutifully ate her baked chicken breasts and steamed vegetables and never asked for sweets or fatty foods. She’d never suffered from food cravings and had taken it in stride that she was going to have the body shape of the “unlucky ladies on your father’s side of the family” as her mother constantly reminded her.

Because of her wide bright smile and way of making a person feel they were the most treasured in a room, Cindy rarely had been the subject of ridicule. Once when the scrawny and mean Jeanette Parsons told her she was so fat, her “ass had its own zip code”, Cindy laughed so good-naturedly that Jeanette laughed too and when Cindy added that she was so fat she didn’t need the internet “cuz I’m already world wide” hands placed on each hip, Jeanette laughed even harder. And though she never had a serious boyfriend in high school, more than a few boys learned the secret that there is more pleasure to be had in grabbing onto softness than unforgiving bones.

In her 20s, when fashion magazines editorialized about the dangers of young girls striving for the “perfect bikini body,” she laughed and started her oft-stated diagnosis of “reverse body dysmorphia”. On occasion she was surprised when she discovered that her perception of her size and the actual number on the tag didn’t exactly match. But rather than feeling panic or self-loathing, she shrugged and grabbed the bigger size, vowing and adhering to a new rule to exercise more each week.

After two years of temp work at various offices throughout the city, she was finally offered a full-time position in a human resources department. Her mother immediately advised her to invest in some tailored business jackets that would have a “slimming effect”. She then went on to warn her of lunches out with the girls, happy hour drinks and appetizers at Applebee’s, and the general gluttony that would ensue with an increase in salary. Cindy, having heard the similar warnings before, chuckled and assured her mother she wouldn’t become a blimp, and added as she always did, that there would just be more of herself for her mother to love.

Her first year flew by as she fell into the rhythm of working five days a week from 9:00-5:00. She loved the constant flow of communication whether on the phone, in meetings, or just in passing with the scores of people who were employed there. At the end of each day, when she took off her heels, undid her blazer, and untucked her blouse, she felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and connectedness with the various “teams” she was a part of. So it was with a sense of earning a prize that she accepted an invitation with her group of work friends to take a 10-day trip to Thailand.

They had chosen to go in February when the Midwestern winters were at their cruellest and Cindy revelled in shopping for tropical climate wear. She chose a retro-styled bikini with a high-waisted bottom with a halter top in a bold turquoise colour and a few sundresses for nights on the town. At home she tried on each piece several times, loving the feel of the lightweight fabric and the way she could finally see her body without the confinement of winter layers—the flesh only slightly bulging between the two parts of the bikini.

They had spent the first three days in Bangkok, doing the requisite circuit of walking up and down Kao San Road with other tourists; taking pictures with drugged felines at the Tiger Temple; and riding the train on the Death Railway over the River Kwai. They tried som tam and curries, drank too much, and bought souvenirs of keychains and scarves.

On the advice of a staff member, they decided to travel to the relatively unspoilt Koh Lipe rather than the touristy Koh Phi Phi for the beach part of the holiday. When they arrived, the tourists, mostly from Asia, began climbing deftly from the ferry into the small wooden long-tailed boats that would take them the few meters to shore.

Suddenly, all eyes turned to Cindy.  A collective fear hung in the air as she stood to climb over the hull and down into the boat. Just as quickly, the spell was broken and she could hear and see nearly a dozen strangers, pointing and laughing at her. For a moment she felt the bouncing of her breasts and buttocks as the boat moved in the waves; her arm on the railing looked like a ham hock next to that of the Thai man who was helping people into the boats. She felt swollen like risen dough and wanted to punch herself down to a smaller size. Her face burned as her travelling companions cooed words of encouragement.

Looking up, she saw the small boyish figures before her and suddenly felt a surge of pity that they’d never know full breasts or burying a face into a soft, warm tummy. She stretched her arms above her, and because she was smiling so radiantly, the group found themselves smiling too. She dove effortlessly into the sea and they watched, mesmerized by the way the water rippled and eddied around her. And then, splashing and giggling, they followed her, minnows trailing a dolphin, as she led them to shore.

 

 

The Two Grandmothers

Tara stared at the short email until the black pixels started to bounce and blur. The notice telling her she’d better travel the 12,000 miles to her grandmother’s funeral read as both a plea and a threat. Tara shut her laptop and thought of calling her mother instead of replying. She'd told her mother she’d been unable to get a phone with international calling capabilities and so had only been communicating by email.

Though it was 10:00 a.m. and a Tuesday, Tara opened a bottle of wine and sat in front of the fan. Her rationale for drinking on the morning of a workday was that she had no emotional reaction to her mother’s news and she hoped the wine might help one along. She tried to empty her head and conjure images of the woman she had once loved more than anyone. But she didn’t know which woman to think of, the woman of Before. Or After.

At least once a month for as long as she could remember, Tara “spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa,” During these 24 hours, they played countless hands of rummy at the dining room table, M&Ms and sodas always at their sides. On cold days the trio baked cookies or created masterpieces in Grandpa’s shop, and on sunny afternoons, she crawled into the backseat as Grandpa took the wheel and Grandma rode shotgun. They drove for hours in the countryside, making up stories about the abandoned barns. Grandpa didn’t say much, but he always smiled and winked in the rear-view mirror anytime she said something clever. Grandpa was a dead ringer for Kirk Douglas and though Grandma’s composite wasn’t Hollywood lovely, some of her individual bits were, like the impossibly large blue eyes and a sparkling laugh that filled a room.

In the evening, Tara was tucked in snug on the sofa that seemed to stretch for miles, wrapped in fresh sheets and afghan blankets, drifting off to the sound of her grandparents’ murmurs, chuckles, and later, snores. In the morning, they ate BLT sandwiches in their pyjamas and Tara tried to ward off the growing dread of waiting for her mother to collect her, bringing with her a heaviness that flattened the room as she recounted yet another confrontation with Tara’s stepmother at the grocery store or a date gone wrong.

Grandma never drank and wouldn’t tolerate alcohol in her house but she did need a daily dose of chocolate to feel “right in the head”. That mild July day, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and Grandpa was more than happy to pop over to the store, as doing so allowed him his own indulgence of smoking his pipe. Windows rolled down, public radio blaring, he drove the long way home, arm resting on the window, one hand on the wheel. The horizontal light beams of the 7:00 sun had temporarily blinded him and he didn’t see the other car coming. Men his age ignored seatbelts so he, his pipe, and a lone Hershey’s bar were found 100 meters from the crumpled car.

The After Grandma still played cards but distractedly and without enjoyment. She suspected that everyone was cheating or letting her win out of pity. During these games, she chastised her companions for not having appreciated the man who was “the heart of this family”. She stopped going to church because “God only took the good ones” and each week she highlighted in detail how she hoped she’d die, wanting most to be “euthanized like an old cat”. One day she’d be nostalgic and amazed that a man loved her so much he’d die for her, while on another day she might weep and say she should have been an alcoholic. “Frank would never have gone out to get me more drink.” When her sister’s husband died of cancer, After Grandma, rather than offer condolences, sputtered bitterly, “You better damn well appreciate you had the chance to say goodbye!” Soon, friends stopped calling round and she began to shrink inside the rooms she once had filled with laughter. She watched TV, ate chocolate, and did little to take care of herself despite her family’s attempts at interventions.

Tara graduated and went to college and left the Midwest. She tried to send chipper emails, but the replies she did receive left her feeling helpless. “NOBODY TOLD ME HOW HORRIBLE GETTING OLD WOULD BE AND THAT YOUR FAMILY WOULD ALL EVENTUALLY ABANDON YOU. GRANDMA.”

The last time she had seen her grandmother was before she left for Thailand. Tara sat in the bright cafeteria with her and as they played rummy, her grandmother tried to make sense of what she was doing teaching English in a country halfway around the world. She said she and Grandpa had planned to travel when he retired but they’d been robbed of that dream. It was the first she’d heard of this plan and eagerly asked where they had wanted to go. “Why think of it now? I’ll die in this chair, in this prison. But you, you keep on seeing the world. You always had the freest spirit of all of them.”

Tara looked at her empty bottle of wine and contemplated her “free spirit”. She’d thought that by escaping toxic relationships and dead-end jobs, she’d be free. But her demons had followed her, stowed away as she boarded the plane. And here she was, drunk and likely to call in sick again so as not to be a spectacle in front of her class of 60 students who she doubted would even notice.

She opened the message again and considered getting more wine, but felt clear-headed and sure of what to do. The truth struck her so forcibly that tears formed as she poised her fingertips over the keys and sent her mother an equally curt reply.

“My grandmother did not die yesterday. She died July 12, 1991. There was and never has been a chance to say good-bye. I’m sorry.”

Just a Sandwich

Miranda put the tiny plate into the sink and immediately felt guilt. How many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches had she consumed in her lifetime? Hundreds of bright white squares with their mushy brown and purple interiors, eaten and forgotten as quickly as they were made. How many opportunities for something new and mind-blowing had she missed? After all, “extraordinary” meant “beyond ordinary” and what was more ordinary in a single woman’s life than a PB & J?

As Miranda washed the plate and knife, she imagined what she should have made instead. She’d yet to try an egg baked inside half an avocado, buffalo cauliflower, or a roasted fennel salad. She had a boxful of recipes written on bits of paper and a collection of cookbooks threatening to collapse a shelf in a kitchen. She calculated that she had maybe 10,000 meals left if she cooked at least once a day and a couple times on the weekend.

 How had living each day like it was my last turned into living it like it was last night? She sat in the chair by the window and put her head between her knees to reverse the scorching panic that had started in her stomach and was burning its way up to her throat.

For the past few years, whenever she read or watched stories of tragic death, she was struck by how every person always said between sobs that they never thought that it would happen to them. Miranda was certain that it would, indeed, happen to her. She had no doubt that cancer, probably the stealthy and fast melanoma, would take her out in a matter of months when it was discovered. She knew a bus was poised and ready to strike her down as she mindlessly crossed streets on her pre-dawn runs. She knew her limbs would fail before her mind and she’d be trapped in a prison of unmoving and unfeeling flesh. She was more than ready for the dementia to set in and make her body do things and go places it shouldn’t.

Sitting in the chair, she whispered to the room, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, which is why it’s called the present.” Each day she received a little message from carpediem.com that forced her to examine how she would live life to the fullest that day. She made notes: take pictures of the two cute seagulls who dominate the courtyard; make Ethiopian food; stand on the Ha’Penny Bridge for a full five minutes; try sketching in charcoal; pick a flower; watch the sunset or the sunrise—no, do both!”

She mostly followed the lists and suggestions, occasionally going off script and pleasing herself with some spontaneous moment seizing—stopping to watch a street performer; kneeling to pet a stray cat; lying in bed for an hour just to enjoy the freshly washed sheets.

But lately, more often than not, she has having more PB&J moments than avocado and it terrified her. She had started taking short showers instead of the long contemplative lavender scented baths; the Real Housewives franchise was edging out BBC, and she often arrived at work not remembering one object or face she encountered on the way. The moments were slipping away one by one.

She opened her laptop and googled “inspirational quotes” and decided the first one that came up would guide her towards some meaningful action.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”—Eleanor Roosevelt

Exactly! A trip to an exotic locale would lift her out of this rut. She imagined standing arms wide to the sky at Machu Picchu or twirling beneath the Northern Lights in Lapland.

“You must live life in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”—Henry David Thoreau.

She sighed, suddenly relieved not to have to go through the hassle of on-line booking, inefficient airports, and inaccurate travel guides. Not to mention, she only had enough funds to get to where Ryanair would take her in western Europe.

No more wasting her life on carbs and bad TV. For the next few weeks she blogged “30 Small Things I’m Thankful for” which included pictures of her duvet and Vitamax, walked a different route home each day, cooked every recipe from 100 Curries of the World, and sat on a bench in the courtyard at sunset.

Yet anxiety accompanied her on each of these activities. She chewed slowly to focus on the flavour, desperately trying to appreciate it enough. She strained to take in every detail; fretting over if she was doing mindfulness correctly, feeling disappointed when dancing in the rain just left her soggy and cold. To suck more marrow out of each day, she started staying up late, journaling obsessively so as not to forget the wonders of the minutiae of the day.

But then she suffered a cold and could do nothing but lie on the sofa. She closed the curtains to sunsets and sunrises, and watched reality TV. One day she felt well enough to bring home a bottle of wine and takeout and felt amazing, then sick, then nothing.  She slept for two days. The third day she woke feeling ravenous, chest and nasal passages clear. A jolt of energy propelled her from the bed and she went to the kitchen.

Staring at a nearly overripe avocado, she began to sweat and breathe unevenly. It’s time to start living again! Time to grab life by the horns and make each nanosecond, each morsel, each breath astounding!

 But suddenly, a sense of calm overcame her as she grabbed the familiar jars. Her breathing slowed and her mind cleared. After all, she thought, it’s just a sandwich.