Mush for Brains

Tags

adipositivity, blogging, Dances with Fat, fat, guilt, ideal world, real life, Rubens

In an ideal world I would have the time to generously sit down and write, each day and every day. Unfortunately real life isn’t like that and I’ve been really struggling the last month which is why I haven’t been here.

I don’t know whether it’s the advent of real warm sunshine over the last few days but I’ve ended up spending two days very thoroughly clearing out the boys’ bedroom. Sorting out the rubbish down the side of the beds and all the accumulated junk has given me the space to mull over things.

I’ve managed so far to do well at maintaining my morning exercise. I skip the occasional day but I don’t beat myself up about and have kept it going quite happily over the last three months. I’m aware of my body feeling different, with muscles that I couldn’t feel at all before and a spring in my step when I jump up the stairs. I think I’ve got my head round both enjoying exercise and focusing on the short term immediate benefits. As well as enjoying it, I feel invigorated and positive, stronger even. It’s part of my daily routine.

I need to do the same with blogging. Rather than leave it until the afternoon or evening by which point my brain has turned to mush I’m going to move it to the morning, before I get on with work. I need to act out the belief that looking after me is more important than working, or anything else for that matter.

I was talking this through with my therapist this morning and realised I hadn’t really said anything much about HAES or Intuitive Eating or any of those sort of issues to her so I skimmed through the various points of both these concepts and we discussed them. I need to return to why I’d barely mentioned these to her in the future.

One thing that I raised was my non-acceptance of my own body and other people’s. Dances With Fat’s morning post When Every Body But Mine Was Beautiful raised something I have a problem with. I still look at very fat / obese people and think “fat” to myself. Ragen refers to a site with positive photos of fat people and I look at these photos and all I can think is how do you manage with that body, how can you love it?

I’m not using their photos without permission so have a look for yourself. There are some brilliant ones there. Ragen talks about seeing the beauty in people’s bodies, regardless of their shape and I’m not there yet. I don’t like that about me. I have fat friends, I have thin ones and ones all the way in between. It doesn’t bother me and I don’t define them that way but walking down the street I look at extremely fat people and wonder how they cope. I do also wonder about the health of stick figure people too.

There’s a practical side to this too. I’ve had creases and folds under my breasts and at the top of my legs which rub together and get sore, taking a long time to heal. I hate having my inner thighs chafing each other in the summer when I’ve got bare legs under my skin. I’m not even that huge so how do people with far more wobbly bits than me actually manage on a daily basis and how do they not get irritated by this?

I feel guilty that this is my reaction to some beautiful photos but it just highlights a self-evident truth that we are brought up to perceive one size of body as beautiful and the rest as unacceptable. Yet, this is a fairly recent idea, and one which led me straight to Rubens.

Tag, you’re It!

Tags

3son, blogging, citron givre, I Know Where I'm Going, IKWIG, meme, Scottish_Mum

I have been tagged by the very lovely @Scottish_Mum, whose blog I don’t read quite often enough. I am to answer her 12 questions. After my answers, you’ll find a new list of questions at the bottom from me, for you to answer on your own blog. Then you make up a new set of 12 for your victims. And so it goes on until the bell rings for the end of playtime.

I answered these in reverse, from 12 down to 1. I’m not sure why.

"Catriona" Pamela Brown

1 – If you could have chosen your own name, what would it be?

Catriona, the name I use on here. She is a character in Michael Powell’s “I Know Where I’m Going“, one of my favourite films, a love story with a terrible terrible curse in it. She was slightly wild and very very independent, an attitude I admired.

2 – Who do you most admire in life, and why?

The public figure I admire most would be Nelson Mandela, for reasons that are fairly obvious, but especially for his commitment and integrity over the years. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is someone else I admire for speaking up for women where no-one else would (look her up and read her books).

For a private figure, it would be L, a friend who helped me a lot when we move abroad. At the age of 12 she shepherded her younger siblings single-handedly through France to get home through the war zone at the outbreak of the second world war. She taught French to American students and would cook for them all at the end of the year, 150 for dinner. She was a very committed Roman Catholic although she did read palms and coffee cups as well and I regret not asking her how the two married up. She was a mostly single mother who brought up her children excellently, or so it seemed to me. She had an immense amount of inner strength and determination and tried to tell me that I could achieve whatever I wanted if I tried enough. Her convictions also sadly led her to trust in homeopathy when she was diagnosed with cancer and she died soon after.

3 – What is your most treasured possession?

My books. They are are the best representation of all the things I am interested in, although woefully incomplete. I love the books that I’ve had for years, remembering the shop I bought them in or the person who gave it to me. I loathe it when books are not treated with respect.

I’m quite fond of my bed too.

4 – Are you a glass half full, or glass half empty type person? Give an example.

I have seen my  glass as half empty but am trying to see it as half full.

I’ve always thought that fundamentally people are good and that humanity will move forwards rather than backwards as is so often suggested.

For myself I’ve always been hyper-critical, considering the tasks left undone or incomplete far more than the achievements. My school reports invariably said “could do better” and I absorbed that as a negative.

3son came across this question recently and told me it was stupid because a glass is both half-full and half-empty simultaneously.

5 – Tell your favourite funny joke…

I don’t tell jokes. I suppose because it’s setting myself up to be laughed at, or to fail to tell one well so I just don’t. My father had five that he used to repeat ad nauseam throughout my childhood. One of these was (and still is) “How do you make a Maltese Cross? Stamp on its foot.”

Maybe that’s why I don’t tell jokes.

6 – What is your biggest fear in life?

That I die before my children grow up and can manage on their own.

Less seriously, and more probable is making a complete fool of myself in public. I am still heavily embarrassed by memories of things I wish I hadn’t done 30 years ago.

7 – What is your favourite flavour of ice cream? What does it remind you of?

I absolutely love lemon sorbet, preferably when it’s very tart and made inside a lemon skin (citron givré, can’t remember the Italian, and the Internet has failed me). It reminds me of when I was a child and my father used to take me out for dinner occasionally just the two of us. Lemon sorbet was about the only flavour he ever ate but we both used to enjoy them.

My second favourite, which is perceived as a childish dish is a Dame Blanche, with vanilla ice cream, a dollop of cream (preferably Chantille) and hot chocolate sauce. Perfect.

8 – If you have kids, do they do what you tell them first time, every time? If no kids, what about your elders?

You must be joking, of course they don’t. I’d be worried about their lack of independence if they did. Although I’d appreciate 3son doing it once a month just to show that he’s capable.

9 – Prada or Primark?

Primark. I do have moral debates with myself whether you should buy products that are made in sweat shops or whether those people working there need the money. What would they do instead? It’s easy to say that they shouldn’t be working those hours in those conditions for so little pay but does boycotting solve the issue?

I’ve never been a brand person. I’ve never seen the point of spending hundreds of pounds on handbags, let alone clothes. Since I first had children I went for years without buying clothes that weren’t easily washed so finger marks and spillages would not bother me. I’m trying to pay a bit more attention to buying clothes.

10 – Jeans or joggers?

Jeans, I don’t think I’ve ever owned a pair of joggers. No, not ever.

11 – Jennifer Aniston or Meryl Streep.

Jennifer for her vivacity although Meryl’s a better actress (and she did play *that* woman, which puts me off).

12 – Sean Connery or Daniel Craig.

Sean Connery, definitely. I bumped into him in a theatre bar after a play once, which made me think that Jason Connery who was starring in the play was possibly his son. It was a long time ago.

Phew, made it. I didn’t think I’d have so much to say in my answers. Now for my 12 questions. Please feel free to explain your answers.

1. Why did you start a blog?

2. Red or blue?

3.  Sub-titles or dubbed?

4. Where would you visit if you could go anywhere?

6. Comfort or style?

7. Safety or risk, and what do they mean to you?

8. What do you like to read (or do you)?

9. What’s your most irritating trivial habit?

10. What fascinates you?

11. The smell or sight of which food makes you drool with anticipation?

12. What’s your favourite piece of art?

If you read this, consider yourself tagged. I’ll add your link in if you do. I’d particularly like Twoplustwo08 and Whatsit to answer. So if that’s you, get typing.

Twoplustwo08 carried this on at her blog so go see what she thinks.

Six Months On

Tags

blogging, diary, me, readers, way post, writing

I started this blog on 29th December 2010, more like seven months on really.

I am quite genuinely pleased that I’ve kept going with it and haven’t given up. On the more positive side it has done me a lot of good. I have written about topics that would have kept going round and round in my head if I hadn’t put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and it has forced me to take time to think about me, something I’m still not keen on doing.

I have on various occasions as a child tried to keep a diary but found it pointless. To write of daily events seemed to me incredibly boring and if I wrote of my miseries then I didn’t want to read them again so what was the point.  I did write of a fantasy life inside my head but I was so worried that someone might find it and read it that I tore it up into tiny little pieces and got rid of it.

I think I also didn’t want to write or take pleasure in it because I had missed out on so many years of schooling in English which did make a big difference but more importantly because my father made a living out of writing and my scrawls could never match up to his. I once made a book with painstakingly hand drawn pictures for my mother’s birthday and never saw it again.

So, over the years I’ve had to write, official letters or work-related documents and I’ve had to learn for myself how to be clear and concise, how to express myself. It has taken me a long time to learn that I can do it and not see these things with panic. However this is the first time I have really tried writing for pleasure or because I want to.

I sometimes wonder about whether I will ever stop being anonymous on here, whether I will come out on my ‘real’ twitter feed with people who know me in real life and say, come visit the real me over here. I wonder if I could send a link to my parents whether they would recognise themselves here or wonder why on earth I’d sent it. I do sometimes think I could send the link to 1sis and she would read and appreciate but I also think she might decide to tell my parents for me. I hide behind the thought that I can only be totally honest about my children and talk about them if I never let them or their friends see it but I wonder if that’s an excuse. I worry about what acquaintances would think, or work colleagues, people I don’t really know, and the odd person who I don’t really like and wouldn’t want to share my story with.

The reality is of course, that is doesn’t matter. I write this for me. Having readers, both real friends, internet only friends and total strangers is great and ensures that I don’t just ramble on but try and focus on a topic and expressing myself clearly. But I don’t need a huge number of them although I would appreciate the wider conversation. I try not to play the numbers games as it’s not really relevant although secretly I would love to wake up one morning to find that lots of people had been reading me.

I expect changes in the next six months: I’ll come to an end with my current counsellor for one thing. I don’t expect any other major changes in my life but 3son will be starting his secondary school and 4son will be alone in his. Hopefully 1son will be at college and 2son will settle into CATE. It all could give me more time and space to focus on me and the question is whether I will actually do it.