Monthly Archives: February 2008

Family matters

Making amends

Dear Body,

I owe you an apology.

The attention that I’ve given you over the past several decades has been largely negative. You’re well aware that I’m not happy with the size of our pants or with the way shirts fall over your shape.
Letter to My Body

You also know that there was a time when I was putting a lot of time and energy toward decreasing the number in that waistband and making that silhouette a little more friendly to the eye.

But then you let me down in a big way, Body, when we lost that first pregnancy. We weren’t friends after that. I wasn’t interested in trying to mend our relationship. I hated you. So I wasn’t kind to you. I reverted to my old eating habits, and I went back to hitting the couch rather than the gym after work. And all that work we’d done? Gone far more quickly than I could have imagined.

Did you see that? It’s so easy to slip into that negativity when I think about you. That’s something I’d like to work on. I was supposed to be telling you I’m sorry.

I need to remember to treasure you from top to bottom. When I’m able to see my children smile or when I hear them laugh and chatter, when I pull Poppy into my lap for a hug, when I stretch up to give Rockford a kiss. I need to remember that I couldn’t do any of that without you.

I’d like to make peace with you, Body. I’d like to work together again, to try to be happy with you the way you are and to try to make you a healthier vessel. I want to be proud of you, and I want Poppy and Pete to know that you and I are partners. I don’t want them to have a mommy who’s at war with her own body. What kind of message does that send them?

So what do you say, Body? Can we be friends? Can I treat you well? Can I stop filling you with junk and start moving you around?

I’m going to give it a shot. And maybe this time I can be happy with you even if we don’t quite make it to the size I’d like for us to be.

. . . . .

Read other bloggers’ letters to their bodies — and add a link to your own — at BlogHer. Marste’s letter took my breathe away, and Virginia’s letter is so kind and forgiving. There’s a lot of good reading over there.

Diversions

An old friend makes the news

When Rockford and I first got married and moved to Missouri, we didn’t have much in the way of furniture. Fortunately for us, the offices of the newspaper where we worked were also moving. And they were getting rid of all of their stuff. So we loaded the office’s gigantic orange sofa onto our moving truck and hauled it out West.

Years later, we decided it was time to part ways with the sofa. We thought it would be a shame to throw it away, though, so we took it to our local favorite local movie theater. It’s been there ever since.

Until now.

The Ragtag is moving, and it looks like our sofa is going to be left behind. Or moved to the landfill, more likely.

My friend Amy called this morning to let me know that the orange sofa had been immortalized in the Columbia Missourian:

For years, in the front row of Ragtag Cinemacafé’s screening room, one shabby orange couch has sucked in spilled popcorn, loose change and unsuspecting fannies like a behemoth vacuum cleaner. It slumps in the middle, where the tweedish cushions have long since lost their comfortable fluff, and when you sit there, gravity seems to tug just a little harder at your backside. The couch, both feared and loved, has a reputation reminiscent of a campy horror movie slogan: You can sit down, but you can’t stand up.

I have to say, it troubles me that in a room full of old office furniture, the person in charge of the move called our old friend “most uncomfortable seat in there, for sure.”

You can read the rest of the story here.

Domestic Blitz

The Center for Sock Reunification

Our sad, single socks used to live out the remainder of their days piled one on top of the other in a basket in the laundry room. They stayed there, lonely and orphaned and never again paired up with their mates. Because I never dug through the basket to find out whether or not their pals were already in there waiting for them.

After years of this, I had an epiphany: I needed a new system.
Works for Me Wednesday

I thought I might reunite more socks if I could actually see them all at one time. So I hit the wall. I asked Rockford to put two eye hooks in the wall in the laundry room. Then he strung a piece of wire between them. A handful of clothespins later, and The Center for Sock Reunification was born.

Not only has the system helped me reunify several pairs of socks, but it always makes me giggle to see the ever-changing “art installation” on the laundry room wall. And who can’t use a laugh when they’re facing with Mount Washmore?