Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
by Roxane Gay I remember the day that Roxane Gay tweeted (@rgay) about the memoir she was working on. I went straight to Amazon and preordered it. I knew, my gut told me, that it was going to be an important book for me. That was January 2016. The book was, Gay explains now, much harder for her to write than she anticipated, and was delayed a year. Every so often Amazon would email me and ask if I wanted to cancel the order. Each time I declined. I waited, patiently, and finally received the book last week. It was worth the wait. Reading Hunger has left me feeling like an exposed nerve, like a mere breeze could be enough to break me apart. It cut so close, in so many ways, on so many levels. It is not my story, but it is. Gay recounts the horrible incident that happened when she was 12. She was brutalized, gang raped, and later bullied. She told no one. She swallowed it all. She felt guilty, ashamed, alone. She carried the weight of what was done to her, and she used her own weight to protect herself. I have not experienced anything on the scale that Gay did. I have never been brutalized, but I know what it feels like to have my innocence bruised. By the age of five I was sexually assaulted by two people, one male, and one female. They used me for their own sexual exploration and development. I didn’t know what it all meant. I didn’t have the words to tell anyone what had happened. I knew it was bad, that I must be bad, and I knew not to tell. So I didn’t. I didn’t tell anyone for almost 40 years. But I carried it. I felt the weight of it. I have forgotten a lot about my childhood, but those experiences are vivid and always there, waiting to pop up, waiting to remind me that I am damaged, and unlovable. I do not doubt for a second that my weight, my size, at least in part is connected to those early experiences. Hunger is an honest look at what it is like to move through a world which you are too big for, a world which was not made for you. Gay talks about things we don’t talk about, like the reality of being covered in bruises because you’re always forcing yourself into spaces that are meant for smaller people, like chairs with arms (#&$%). Like the fact that you are at once invisible and hyper-visible, people choose not to see you because they find it uncomfortable, or they feel they have the right to tell you about your body. Think about the arrogance of that. Gay has laid herself bare in this memoir. It is powerfully written, with grace and humour - the chapter about working out with her trainer made me laugh out loud. I wish I could make everyone read this and Lindy West’s Shrill. Maybe reading what it is like to be fat would generate some empathy to accompany all of the judgment. I feel like they have helped me to embrace the word fat, to own it. It is mine. It is me. I am also left feeling grateful for Gay’s words. As a librarian I probably take reading for granted a lot of the time. Hunger reminded me about the power of the written word, it reminded me that reading can cause physical reactions and emotional catharsis. Gay reminded me I am not alone. The power of words is amazing! Go read. An interesting article on the link between obesity and trauma: The Second Assault.
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Last week was not an easy week. It was a week when politics seeped into everything, every conversation, every thought, and even into my yoga. It was a hard week. I couldn’t stay detached. Or calm. Or centred. I let myself feel it all too personally. It was a hard week to be a woman. It was a hard week to be a feminist.
Fortunately, I experienced one bright moment, a moment that renewed my hope. I had the privilege of teaching yoga to a group of 10 – 14 year old girls. Girls who meet each week for a program at the library, to talk about being girls, to support each other, and to find their voices through art and writing. We did a short practice together, moving together, breathing together. And, we talked about body image, body acceptance, and the image the media gives us about yoga. We talked about why I am not who they thought of when they heard someone was coming to teach yoga. I told them not to waste their time worrying about what others think of how they look. I told them they are beautiful. I read them Anna Guest-Jelley’s Curvy Yoga Matifesto. It made me really emotional to share it with them, to talk so openly about accepting my body. It made me wonder what my life would have looked like if someone had had that conversation with me at that age. Nobody had that conversation with me. There was no hint of acceptance, only shame. Today, I received a lovely card from them. It made my day. I am so grateful to be able to share yoga with girls and women of all ages. We are strong and we will prevail. Relax, Receive, Restore
$40.00 Join Olwen and I for a a special two-hour workshop. You'll experience the healing benefits of Reiki while relaxing during an extended restorative yoga class. Think of it like a luxurious reset button to the end of your week. Afterwards, you'll be able to enjoy the rest of your weekend and the week ahead, fully. Saturday, October 22, 2016. 10 am - 12 pm. Register here. Mountain
- plant your feet, maintain a micro-bend in the knees, shoulders back and down Inhale and circle your arms overhead Side-bending Mountain - shift your weight to the right side and stretch your arms to the left, feeling a nice side stretch - come back to centre - shift your weight to the left side and stretch your arms to the right, feeling a nice side stretch - come back to centre Standing backbend with linked thumbs Goddess - widen your stance, bring your arms down to shoulder height and squat - straighten your legs and arms, step your feet in Forward bend - bring hands to base of chair, looking straight ahead Supported Warrior 1 - step one leg back, bending into the front knee - bring hands to front knee, find your balance, and bring hands to hips, lifting the torso - circle arms up overhead - link thumbs, and stretch back, looking up Forward bend - lower arms bringing hands to waist, knee, chair - release forward for a few breaths - come half way up, looking straight ahead Inhale and circle your arms overhead Mountain, bring your hands to heart centre (repeat on other side) Look at this beautiful group of women! Can you tell how much fun we had at yoga school? This is Anna Guest-Jelley, and the students I studied with in Nashville. It was such an empowering, enlightening, humbling, and inspiring experience.
I started with a lot of fear. I actually only committed to the first module, in case I couldn’t do it. What business did I have going into yoga teacher training? I was big and slow and insecure. Why would I drive thousands of kilometers to Nashville four times and spend a week doing yoga with total strangers? I know some family and friends thought I was a bit crazy. After the first week, I drove home feeling stronger and lighter than I ever had before. I felt like I had found my people, I had found my place, my voice, my strength. It was an amazing feeling. Of course, the universe wanted to keep me grounded, and between modules one and two my knee blew up. I went very quickly from enjoying a new confidence in my body to feeling like it had completely betrayed me. A combination of arthritis, a Baker’s cyst and a small tear, left me in pain, and with a new reality of what I could and could not do. It was hard. Old doubts and insecurities started to creep into my thoughts. I seriously considered not completing teacher training. Somehow, with the support of the class and Anna, I managed to push through and keep going. I am so glad that I did. It was hard, but it was so worth it. Two years later, two years after graduating, I am teaching and finding my own yoga. Teaching was never my goal, I just wanted to learn as much as I could, and I still do. I loved opening Facebook this morning and seeing memories from so many of my fellow students. I love that we are still there to boost each other up. Grateful. Grateful. Grateful. I can’t wait to read Lindy West’s new book, Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman, which will be released next week. As a librarian, I don’t actually buy very many books, I embrace the fact that I can borrow them from the library, and I really try to minimize my possessions. This book, however, along with Roxane Gay’s forthcoming Hunger, are books I just know I need to own. I preordered them as soon as I possibly could. While neither of these books are ‘yoga’ books, they are about self-acceptance, self-awareness, and body image. The Guardian published an excerpt from Shrill this weekend, and it has made me even more eager to get the book in my hands. It resonates with me so profoundly: “The “perfect body” is a lie. I believed in it for a long time, and I let it shape my life, and shrink it – my real life, populated by my real body.” Read the article, it is worth your time. Do NOT read the comments attached to the article, they are definitely not worth your time. Let us all go forth and live big, happy, adventurous lives. Don’t be fooled by the title. This is not the story of a big girl who loses weight, falls in love, and lives happily ever after. There are no quick fixes here or traditional fairy tale endings. That is what makes this book special, challenging, and thought provoking. It is the story of Plum, a young woman living, well sort of living, in New York City. She answers advice letters for a teen fashion magazine. She lives alone, works at home, and doesn’t really socialize. She is obese; the official term is morbidly obese, so naturally she doesn’t expect more. She is scheduled for weight loss surgery, after which her life will begin. She believes when she is thin her life be real. In her real life she will have friends; she’ll throw dinner parties, and maybe even have overnight guests. While Plum is putting in time, waiting for her surgery, waiting to release the thin woman inside her, she unexpectedly becomes involved in an underground feminist world she never knew existed. She meets Verena Baptist, the daughter of a late diet industry mogul. Verena takes Plum under her wing, and sets out to prove to her that dieting and surgery are not the only paths to happiness and a meaningful life. At the same time, there are global acts of feminist terrorism happening. Under the name Jennifer, a woman or group of women, have put the world on edge, subverting male power, and asserting the rights of women. Plum doesn’t know what to make of it all, and is surprised to find herself connected to it. This is a novel that challenges the reader, it is graphic and extreme. It goes against long held societal beliefs. Plum is a big heroine who finds self-acceptance and a real life. That is a radical act. From the Kitchener Citizen. On days when I am not sure, not sure about my body, not sure about my practice, not sure about my place in yoga, I watch this video. Sometimes, okay most times, more than once. It brings me hope and joy and inspiration. Enjoy. |
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