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"days into the dirt and dust and fray"
Sep. 5th, 2020 10:52 pmI'm at odds with my body these days.
I'm always at odds with my body, so I guess that means it's always these days.
About a week ago, my back itched and so I scratched and came away with a chunk of skin. My fingernails are not sharpened to points, it wasn't particularly hard scratching but for days afterward it hurt when I got sweaty, or showered, and now it seems to be healing, itchier than ever. I just scratched it again, absent mindedly, and the scab seems to be black-inked skin and of course I'd fuck up my tattoo now.
Sometimes, I think every bad or hard thing has helped me grow more ungainly, added another twenty pounds that I can neither come to terms with nor get rid off. Working backwards, pandemic, surgery, more different surgery, menopause, quitting smoking. Which isn't to say I'm a hundred pounds heavier than I was in 2006, but it's closer to true than not. And I tattoo, and I pierce, and I buy snarky tanktops and I pretend I don't care, and semi-secretly, I read body positivity books and fail to take away the lessons they try to teach me about enjoying the body I inhabit, no matter its shape, about most diets not working not because I am weak-willed and therefore, morally inept at best but because that's not the way my body works.
The stretch marks mimic the scars, and there are days when I simply cannot handle how faded the scars are, that if I am this far away from the things that hurt me, I should be more healed than this, that instead of resting on past laurels, I'm resting on a past bed of broken glass and dead dreams and that's just as gross. What exactly have I suffered lately to merit this kind of damage?
My next tattoos are supposed to be a dorothea tanning beastie, a tiny picture from buttercup festival, a turtle, a manta ray and a beluga whale, waves in my ear. I think I want the aquatic creatures swimming through land plants, but unlike borage which I knew pretty immediately, I'm going to need to do some more research of flower language and correspondences and all that. Maybe birch and aspen trees? Daffodils and cattails and queen annes lace? Or maybe I need to figure out some way to convey roots. (and yes, I pronounce it that way even in my head)
I keep these little lists of the things I do each day, just to remind myself that even if the days feel all the same, like some slow descent into perpetual sameness marked only by the passing of seasons, I do actually do things. I go to volunteer meetings and read books, I stitch and walk doggos in the Fells, I interact with Light and Abundance and our two dogs and four cats a lot, I see Spark and Delight, I talk to people online, I make dinner and cookies, I clean things and I play tablet games. I might be unmoored but I think drifting might still count as moving.
I'm always at odds with my body, so I guess that means it's always these days.
About a week ago, my back itched and so I scratched and came away with a chunk of skin. My fingernails are not sharpened to points, it wasn't particularly hard scratching but for days afterward it hurt when I got sweaty, or showered, and now it seems to be healing, itchier than ever. I just scratched it again, absent mindedly, and the scab seems to be black-inked skin and of course I'd fuck up my tattoo now.
Sometimes, I think every bad or hard thing has helped me grow more ungainly, added another twenty pounds that I can neither come to terms with nor get rid off. Working backwards, pandemic, surgery, more different surgery, menopause, quitting smoking. Which isn't to say I'm a hundred pounds heavier than I was in 2006, but it's closer to true than not. And I tattoo, and I pierce, and I buy snarky tanktops and I pretend I don't care, and semi-secretly, I read body positivity books and fail to take away the lessons they try to teach me about enjoying the body I inhabit, no matter its shape, about most diets not working not because I am weak-willed and therefore, morally inept at best but because that's not the way my body works.
The stretch marks mimic the scars, and there are days when I simply cannot handle how faded the scars are, that if I am this far away from the things that hurt me, I should be more healed than this, that instead of resting on past laurels, I'm resting on a past bed of broken glass and dead dreams and that's just as gross. What exactly have I suffered lately to merit this kind of damage?
My next tattoos are supposed to be a dorothea tanning beastie, a tiny picture from buttercup festival, a turtle, a manta ray and a beluga whale, waves in my ear. I think I want the aquatic creatures swimming through land plants, but unlike borage which I knew pretty immediately, I'm going to need to do some more research of flower language and correspondences and all that. Maybe birch and aspen trees? Daffodils and cattails and queen annes lace? Or maybe I need to figure out some way to convey roots. (and yes, I pronounce it that way even in my head)
I keep these little lists of the things I do each day, just to remind myself that even if the days feel all the same, like some slow descent into perpetual sameness marked only by the passing of seasons, I do actually do things. I go to volunteer meetings and read books, I stitch and walk doggos in the Fells, I interact with Light and Abundance and our two dogs and four cats a lot, I see Spark and Delight, I talk to people online, I make dinner and cookies, I clean things and I play tablet games. I might be unmoored but I think drifting might still count as moving.
