I’m scattered. And really, that says it all

I am back!

Thank you thank you thank you to Laura for carrying the torch while I was gallivanting about the Great White North…. only it wasn’t so white for the most part and, actually, Victoria is south of certain parts of Washington State. But it was, undoubtedly, Great.

It’s sort of hard to wrangle all my thoughts and intentions and … just everything.  So I’ll start where I start and I’ll go from there.  So sorry if this is all over the place.

So I was away, and out of the country (if only a little bit) and, one thing led to another and, well, I let my google reader go neglected for the bulk of my vacation.  I kept up with a few posts from bloggers whom I also follow on twitter and Facebook, but on the whole, not a great deal of blog reading was happening.  I finally actually just marked about 86 posts as read.  I hate doing that.

When I did finally open my reader, I was greeted by news of immeasurable blessings and unspeakable tragedy. It was a life changing month for the women I’ve been reading for years (none of whose posts just got “marked as read”).  I cried with joy and in heartbroken sadness for families I’ve never met.  Afterward I marveled with my husband over the community that has developed for women, mothers, people from this whole Internet thing.  But that’s sort of a tangent for another day.

Amidst all the monumental comings and goings in my reader, one post caught my eye as something that I’d really like to participate in.  The Feminist Breeder wrote about taking her body back, and loving it, thanking it, and praising it in a way that, as little girls, we are led to believe is wrong, narcissistic and immodest. So I decided to do this first post back as a self-affirmation – a good way to start the year.  And later on I’ll do all my hemming and hawing over a new year and what that means to me and what I did on my winter vacation.  excited? I totally thought so.

I thought this would be easier but as I go to write the things I love about my body (just three little things!), I find that I’m nervous. Nervous! how absurd.  Ok here I go.  Things I love about my own body.

1.  my hands. they’re kind of old man hands (it’s not self-deprecation if it’s true!) but I love that I have long fingers and that my hands are capable and strong.

2. my legs. when I run a lot (like now) I get what Masa calls my “leg biceps” – this kind of muscular curve in the back of my thighs.  I Love it.

3. my upper arms, shoulders and back – somehow they always look somewhat muscle-y even when I haven’t been working them out. And when I DO work out, I build muscle quickly.  I love how my arms and shoulders look when they’re toned… alas. they are not toned at the moment. ;).

4. this one took me  a Loooooong time to appreciate and I still have my moments but Masa loves it so I’ll go ahead and say that I like the gap between my front teeth.

But these are all just parts of my body that I like the *looks* of.   And I don’t think that’s really fair to my body.  so please indulge me a moment while I say that I am forever grateful to my body for being so powerful.  For conceiving, growing, birthing and nourishing a human being.  For carrying me through run after run without injury, allowing me the joy of physical exertion.  I can say, without reservation or qualification, that I LOVE my body. I thank my body.

and I thank TFB for raising the point (even if it was weeeeks ago!) that we, as women, should rejoice in what we love about ourselves rather than constantly bemoan the perceived imperfections.

Oh there are so many things I want to tie into this but I just don’t have the time or the energy to sort out all the dangling loose threads of thought.  I want to rant (as I did earlier via emails with Laura) on the injustice of a male-dominated society, and share how I heard, first hand, from an anesthesiologists that he believes midwives to be “a bunch of bitches”, and lament the society we live in that treasures naked breasts only if they’re displayed for male gratification (and we’re not talking infant males here, either).  So those will have to be posts for other days. If I’m feeling feisty. hee.

For now, I’ll leave it at this though.  I’ll let this be my tone for the year. That I am putting it out there for all the world to see that I think I’m beautiful and that I love my body.  We should all do this more often.

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