Endurance..In 1914 the great explorer Ernest Shackleton set out to cross the Antarctic. It was a journey that ended in disaster..sort of? The ship became trapped in ice and eventually crushed.. miraculously every crew member escaped unscathed..Yeah!. I carry the mental image of that ship, a giant skeleton against the haunting backdrop of another world. A tortured vessel squeezed to death by the weight of the surrounding ice. The Eerie quiet of an unknowing mass, so hulking in its innocent execution of whatever wandered in its path… Most people regale the story as one of triumph, but for me, I have always been haunted by that strangled ship “The Endurance”…I related to it. It is exactly how I feel when I lose creative motivation, Stuck in slow moving ice. It is how I feel when I look in the mirror and see someone I don’t recognize…crushed by a monstrous weight.
So I run into one of my most creative friends the other night…A friend with whom I simply do not small talk and I immediately mention my creative rut. We talk about journalling…I stare off into space longing suddenly for the journal that sits by my bed beneath blankets of dust….Yeah..I need to start doing that again…A few days later I receive a gift in my mailbox…It is a journal called “The True and The Questions” by Sabrina Ward Harrison. I think huh…that’s weird..I was just talking about this….and then it dawns on me..I have great friends…I will honor them by taking their advice…So I open the book. The first page..The FIRST ONE says..” My body is holding onto…..My body is holding back…….Aghhhh I flip the page..I don’t want to think about it..I don’t want to think about it….I seriously do not even want to think about it..I flip the page..I’ll come back to it I say…I will move on..I am done thinking about my body..enough with the body already I think…
I can not ignore the fact that I am stuck creatively and that my first attempt to unstick myself asks me to look at the relationship I have with my body. It is comically interesting that I can not escape myself.
Aside from all the people in comas receiving intravenous dairy queen blizzards…most people do not wake up suddenly and find themselves to be 250 pounds..It is something that they do to themselves. Something I did to myself…And most people do not do things that do not serve them in some way…I Have questioned what do I get from being soo heavy, from binge eating, from lethargy..I don’t want to be heavy.. I don’t want to be unhealthy..why do I continue down that path. I have tumbled that thought for years and years and polished the thought down to “comfort”? I like the comfort of being full, of having whatever I want, I like the comfort of the familiar tastes and sensations and packaging of junkfood, that it is always there for me in the middle of the night..like a friend I can eat! In truth is the most uncomfortable comfort I have ever known…
6 months ago I walked into a gym totally sick of myself..I asked for help and I got it..I have no idea how much weight I have lost…I just know that when I started I weighed 250 pounds, I felt so heavy that rolling over in bed was too much of an exertion….I like to think..NOW I have it under control..Now I am gaining some health, I am cured…Maybe if you saw me you would think that same thing too? But if you have known me for a while…you would be wary of any success or change you see in me..because I have been here before…LOTS of times.. I have lost hundreds of pounds…..and gained double that…each time I am so certain I will never gain the weight back again I give away all my big clothes…(If you have ever wondered why I dress so very very bad). I have in fact never been the same weight for more than a few days. The sneaky binging behaviors come back…so the idea that I am holding onto something…being held back by something intrigues me? If I knew what it was.. I could LET GO!
I set myself to the task …what am I holding on to? My first thought ” fear” I am inundated with fears..from mayonnaise to bridges, to being alone, to accidentally poisoning the whole neighborhood with tainted Halloween candy…I have a lot of fears..I start to categorize the ones that might keep a girl fat..fear of failure, fear of being attractive, fear of not being attractive enough! My next thought “pain” I start to list all the pains I have ever had, from my first heart break to my last, I think my body is holding on to the pain of hurtful words and memories..they flash before me and then disappear in an epiphany….HOPE…I am taken aback by the positive sentiment….forget about the pain. forget about the fear…holy crap…I have hope in me that is stronger then the things pulling me down and holding me back…That I keep going..that I endure. I Hope this time that all the other weight losses were practice for this success, I hope that I can break free from myself..I don’t need to let go at all..I need instead to HOLD ON.
The idea that my body is holding on to hope …lifts me up. And as I write I think again about the ship “Endurance” trapped in the ice….and I draw the conclusion that my body is more then a vessel trapped under insurmountable weight….but instead a thing survivable.
Thank you to Mandy for encouraging me to explore parts of myself I would rather ignore…I find you so inspiring…and thank you also for the journal which led me to draw a naked person clawing her way out of another naked person. http://mandythompson.com/blog/
