Posts tagged “body”

Quiet Your Doubt

Posted on October 6, 2014

“I wish I could shower without my thoughts,” I said to Sean absentmindedly as I towel dried my hair. I’d been doing battle with people who haven’t listened, replaying conversations that are already inked and smudged beyond repair. He looked at me and took a deep breath, I felt my shoulders go up in defensive anticipation and then back down. “Me too,” he said and smiled gently. “Hard to turn it all off sometimes.” It felt pretty good to not be judged, but my mind immediately set itself back to judging—flitting from why I chirp “yup” during conference calls to the clothes hanging  in the closet, to the roller coaster of 40something skin (Is it a break out? Is it flaking dry skin? Is…

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Categories: Me

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Testing Body Image

Posted on July 21, 2014

We were sprawled out in the backyard. Sean was spraying the big girls down with a hose and Finley was devouring a sandwich in a lawn chair. The cat and dog were at our sides, both seemingly delighted that we were spending the day in a way that they could be with us. As the grass began to get soppy Sean passed the hose to Briar and Avery and gave them a three minute warning. “Three minutes and the hose is done!” “Okaaaaaaaay!” the girls screeched. Briar was in a purple and black suit, Ave a black rashguard with paint splatter accents and matching bottoms. They darted this way and that, their bodies shiny. Briar’s legs are long and slender, the stretch from knee…

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Categories: Me, Roar

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That isn’t me

Posted on May 4, 2014

I don’t like to think of myself as being susceptible to envy, but I am, in fact I’m really good at feeling envy. I like to think of myself as being accepting and generous, but it’s there, the green eyed monster. In spanish they call it envidia. Isn’t that nice, almost like a name? Envidia. It reminds me of an evil character in one of the loathsome Barbie books that found its way onto our bookshelves. I have often separated my envious side in my mind as being a sort of alter ego. I’m not really envious, I just have moments of being Envidia. Whatever gets you through, right? It turns out that as I travel through 40 I am more ready to see…

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Categories: Me, Roar

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A Poem of Self

Posted on April 13, 2014

Seventy inches, maybe 69, all mine hazel eyes, moody hair, constellations of freckles this upper lip that gets caught on a tooth skin that erupts in chills at the sound of a stretched cotton ball a throat that tightens and eyes that sting more often as the years pass, sometimes from joy other times not I’m getting better with not with not fair and not my problem not like others and not ready yet   The gift of these years is this my 70 inches, or maybe 69, finally fit I touch each one, rather than shrink from I know the outline and color my edges I can stay in the lines or bleed beyond the reflexive snarl of my twenties—still there but the…

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Categories: Me, Random

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Making Passes and Taking Hits

Posted on March 16, 2014

This post is a first for me and I thought it needed a brief introduction. I usually keep marriage along the periphery of the stories I tell. The silos of parenting and life are not as concise as they can seem in storytelling, they aren’t silos at all; they’re brush strokes sharing space on one canvas. Marriage, two sides, a post in two parts—first, what you’ve come to expect here, my words and emotional take on something that happened; second, words from Sean, his perspective on the same thing. It’s personal and revealing.  Our kitchen is at the center of everything, not because of an open floor plan, or even because it’s “that place where everyone gathers,” our kitchen is at the center of everything because…

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Categories: Love, Random

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