where it began, I can't begin to knowin'

I found this today whilst cleaning off (and digging through) my desk. I came across it when we first moved in here, after consolidating a few moves' worth of boxes, and I stashed it away, and right about now I'm curious as to why I didn't just throw it away, like so many other pictures and things from my past.

But there's something to this.

I'd say this was the summer before either sixth or seventh grade, which would make me, oh, 12 or 13. I'm wearing that JC Penney Fox polo shirt because my Mom wouldn't buy la coste. Anyway, when I look at this picture I'm struck with sorrow. I'm smiling, but I won't show my teeth (bad caps after I'd chipped them down riding my Black Knight Skateboard), and it isn't a really joyous smile, but something kind of held back, which was the territory.

This may well have been my very first all-time-high weight. It may have been the summer that I set the weight my body is always longing to return to, when I built those fat cells that still hanker for refilling.

I'm gonna tell you right now that I hate the idea of "before" pictures. I hate how they deny our humanity as fat people-- like this time, space and body we are in right now (or the one I was in back then) somehow isn't real or worthy-- like this is our Pre-life, and our "after" is when things will really start. If that's the case I've started and stopped repeatedly in the 30 or so years since this picture was taken (and let's note that I did this one by myself, in a photo booth on State Street in downtown Santa Barbara). I wish I could tell you more about how I felt way back then-- but it's a blur, lost in the drama and trauma of how acutely (and yet cryptically, as I didn't have the vocabulary or the years in therapy to make sense) messed up my life felt back then, and I will say that I prefer adulthood to those teenage years in the family home.

I know that I wasn't always comfortable, even if I was active (I loved my bike)-- I hated shopping for clothes, I never wanted to get undressed in front of other girls (odd inklings for a pre-homosexual, but strangely logical, no?). Things don't change as much as we change our attitudes towards our undertakings...

When I look at this picture I want to cry for how long I've been dealing with my own obesity, how long I've struggled to find a right relationship to food and exercise and my body; how genetics and environment and whatever else created this girl and then woman who will always have to think about food-- how much, how often, how cooked, all of that.

Yes, it's my profession, now. Strange, like I'm a herpetologist studying the deadliest of snakes. Like the thing that holds so much power and danger for me is the thing that brings me money, a living, that brings me the greatest joy. Food brings all of us joy-- but we don't all choose to work with it. The constant exposure-- 8+ hours a day, is a challenge to someone like me, who struggles to pay attention to what they put in their mouth, and I'll admit it right here, many days finds it work not to just toss whatever's available into the ol' pie hole at any given moment.

I grew up in a classic all or nothing environment. In my mind there was no way that my needs and desires could coexist with those of my parents, and so I learned that to love is to sacrifice, to have to shove yourself aside for fear of being left behind or forgotten. This also builds a certain sense of scarcity that makes you want to grab whatever you can get, when you can get it.*

Years later I learned that this didn't have to be, and that is still my work. And maybe my work is in my work-- maybe I will continue to grow and progress and find my right relation to self by striking that tenuous balance between loving myself and loving my food, knowing when to feast with my eyes rather than feed with my mouth. It's tricky, but I have to try.



*Food (which isn't food, but COMFORT) is no exception.