Visions of Body Dysmorphia

I have come to believe that Body Dysmorphic Disorder plagues most of us. I'm too heavy/thin, short/tall, young/old. Polarized and not fitting the person staring back at in the mirror, we either don't want to look, or spend hours changing the physical self. Dysmorphia is fed by Seventh Avenue ads of beauty and impossibility. Indeed, Photoshop has created the impossibly perfect and now we expect reality to conform...just take a look at Youtube. Think about it, how many people actually feel comfortable in their own skins? Even those of us who recognize we are not defined by skins find it easier to like our spiritual selves than our physical selves.

I lost 55 pounds this year. But when I look in the mirror I see a still overweight, size 22 middle aged woman with the beginnings of smile creases and eye crinkles. I see a body marked by a difficult journey, limited by too many hours in an office job, grad school and doing therapy. And most of my friends echo my challenges with body image. Gender challenges, weight challenges, the wear and tear of arthritis, diabetes, fill in the blank.

Put that thought on on the back burner.

This is a quote from one of what is quickly becoming a favorite author, Susan Howatch. She explores spirituality in the Episcopal Church of England in a series of six books. I've read them out of order, having begun the with the last first. I'm currently reading GLAMOROUS POWERS. It's the story of a monk with a vision that leads him to leave his current calling for something undefined but promised by his psychic powers during a vision. About half way through the book, he attempts to explain what it is like to have a vision:

      "All I know for certain is that I step out of time as we understand it where the past is always behind us and future is still to come."
      "Miss Fielding said suddenly: "It must be like escaping a prison. Isn't it strange how unaware people are of being locked up in time?"
      "You find an unconscious awareness of this in the widespread longing to be immortal. Yet isn't it equally strange, when one remembers that we're also locked up in space, that no one seems to long to be ubiquitous?"

As our character Father Darrow reminds us, we normally perceive ourselves as walking a time line from birth to death, moving inexorably in the direction of death from the moment life begins. Most "mogals" or "mundanes" see this as the inevitability of life.

But what if we really are light beings trapped in a temporary, corporeal existence for the purpose of growth.  What if the only way for a light being to experience the rumble of cat's purr, the sensuality of their fur on fingertips, the devotion in their eyes is to come to Earth, the learner planet, clad in skins of water and bone.

Mayhaps our longing for immortality is the spirit's awareness of the flesh's impermanence and reminder that this stage, many times repeated, is still only temporary. And perhaps, just maybe, this powerful sense of dysmorphia is more than Seventh Avenue's lure. Maybe it is our soul deep awareness that we are something more than the flesh. And that no matter how physically perfect the body becomes, the matching of the corporeal to the spirits is, in the end, impossible.

Let's grab another burner.

That stated, do I believe we should struggle any less with these bodily "temples" to seek a more perfect union of flesh and spirit? My answer is that it depends.

Certainly our physical manifestations on this planet determine identity, how we are perceived, and how we define ourselves. Male. Female. Transgender. Androgynous. Each word comes with a judgement, a cultural value, and definition of self and other.

Moreover, I would never suggest my beloved partner, who is transgendered, should not seek to more clearly align the outer expression of self with the inner sense of identity. It determines which bathroom he/she uses. How others see our coupleness. Whether or not we or he is safe.

So bringing the pots together, the front burner and the back.

I don't believe that everyone has dysmorphia to the extent of a needful diagnosis and treatment. I do think the current focus created by media on the physical distracts light beings from our purpose on this planet. We are here to experience the purr, the fur, the doubt, the fear and the joy of living. We are here to engage our challenges and grow. Sometimes necessary changes leads to the loss of 55 pounds or the transition of gender. Sometimes the physical drives us so profoundly that until that pain is addressed, we cannot get on with our purpose.

Let's stir the pot.

Middle age has come as a rude awakening for me. Despite the roundness of my curves, I've always gotten by on a great complexion, an ability to flirt, an innate sexuality that made the men notice. I changed it all in the last ten years. A substantial weight gain, a shift in pheromones, a iron control over my sexuality has completely shifted how I relate to the world. Menopause has made the shift easier, light on the night sweats and bringing relief to no longer have 10-12 day periods.

Then my complexion shifted. I suddenly started breaking out. Badly. My skin wasn't just splotchy. I had those teenage zits that make people notice. I work in a substance abuse treatment center where such acne is associated with opiate abuse. People kept asking if I was okay. The morning a middle aged gentleman asked, out of deep and caring concern, what was wrong with my face, I realized my appearance was getting in the way of being able to do therapy. No matter the inner work of my journey and my struggle to be comfortable in the flesh, my physical appearance was interrupting the therapeutic process, leading to personal inquires in place of the professional. I find that to be unacceptable.

I turned to the internet. I viewed a teenage model's videos on makeup application. I spent $40 I didn't have at WalMart. For an hour I searched the aisles for the secrets of success. I finally had to admit I have middle age skin in need of real coverage, not that light kid stuff. And I need primer (am I painting a house?). I settled for Drew Barrymore meets Elen Degeneres in the Cover Girl aisle. To my disgust, it worked perfectly. Every single day, I do mean every day, I have had compliments on my appearance ranging from the polite "you look radiant/pretty/really good" to the crass "your makeup is flawless."

Grrrrr.... Just like when I lost 55 pounds and my hips no longer met both sides of my chair (yes, clients have admitted to noticing), I'm judged by appearance. And no matter how pretty the make up, I still don't see the physical matching what's in my head.

Leaving the pot to simmer.

In an ideal world, I suppose the answer is balance. But balance still doesn't allow my partner to go to the male bathroom or erase the pimples from my cheeks. Sigh.

This is where I remind myself it truly is the learning planet.

Sunday Casserole

It's very strange for me to plan to serve a casserole for my in-laws every Sunday. It dominates the day to drive all the way to their home and serve a meal, and some part of me does so grudgingly because so many things wait at home to be done. My Mondays and Tuesdays are very long, leaving me exhausted the start of every week, so lining up another exhausting day can be overwhelming. And yet I find myself planning the meals with great delight. Funny how sharing food brings people together.

A favorite gay boy recently said to me, "Aging is not for the faint of heart." As I count my increasing gray hairs (few enough I can still count) and watch my knees wear with each passing year, I can't help but concur. Makes me incredibly aware of how fragile our parents grow. End of life issues creep in, one year at a time, and I know we have little time left.

So this week it's going to be Johnnie Marzetti and NILLA Tiramisu Cookie Balls. I actually wanted to make the tiramisu last week, but didn't have all the ingredients. So I made Oreo Balls instead, which are deadly sweet.

Occupy Wall Street

I have to admit, this college professor sums up the movement for me. I work for Scrouge, who bought an island in the Bahamas last winter and spends several weeks there every so often. Meanwhile, I don't have health insurance but do have paid time off. I have three weeks a year, the same amount of time my boss spent in the Bahamas during the winter last year. Of course, he went back a few more times, but who is counting?

Sentimentally, I am with the movement. And it is those who stand up and object that change of the system. But I can't help wondering if the movement is actually the pawn of those who are orchestrating change for their own profit. I watch the grass roots protests springing up across the country. I watch the nonviolence and remember the '60s... Indeed, for the last several years I have been acutely aware that history cycles and that it was time for another generation of protests. When I heard about the beginning of the movement, I knew "this is it." But I watch the news, the financial markets, other similar protests in other countries, and I wonder.

A friend pointed out the other day that it's easy to infiltrate such a non-organized group and be the one arrested, the one in the media, the one people remember. And I wonder.

Nevertheless, I stand behind the ideals of the movement. I watch Scrooge drive his extended cab pick-up truck with satellite feed and I struggle to pay my bills, wish I had medical insurance, wrote the check for new glasses and resented not having vision insurance. Partner's benefits four paid for Cameron's last hip and I wonder how we'll pay for the other one now that he can barely walk...And I wonder.

Sunday Afternoons at Grandma's

I grew up in Bloomington, Indiana until we moved to Arkansas when I was ten. I remember two things the most from those years: the humidity and going to my Mammaw's. As a kid, I always sensed tremendous tension between the parental units and my grandparents, but had no clue as to the problem. I was of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I wanted to go, be free of my mother's craziness, to be in a place that smelled of yeast rolls and sugar cookies. On the other hand, my grandmother's silences, hard work, and distance from emotion created a difficult, unnerving environment. I was pretty sure she loved me, but I never seemed to live up her exacting standards. Poppaw was easy. He just loved me. The warm crinkles of his eyes stays with me to this day. As a teen, Mammaw's neighbor, of no relation but called Mammaw Haynes, explained that sometimes love is doing. Rhubarb pie, blackberry jelly, and strawberry jam meant love. Hmmm... I'm a compulsive over eater. Go figure.

These stones used to literally just be lay
out in the fields. Folks gathered them for
fences and the outside of houses.

We were expected for Sunday dinner every week. My grandfather bought the one room house when he married Mammaw. Year by year he added rooms, using Indiana limestone on the outside. Eventually my Mammaw had a three bedroom, two bathroom home with a formal dining room where the family gathered on Sundays. Because I often spilled jelly on the Sunday tablecloth, I had waxed paper under my plate. It was convenient to draw on with the blunt end of my fork while dinner plates were removed and rinsed, and desert was brought to the table.

A year or so before we moved, things changed. In later years I heard stories of my grandmother's meddling and intrusiveness. I'll never really know how much was Daddy's resistance to anyone having a say over my mother and me. Or how much was my mother's mental illness. Or how much was religion, when daddy took mother and me from the family Methodist church where I sat between my parents or grandparents on Sundays, to the austerity of the Church of Christ. I certainly enjoyed Mammaw's yeast rolls over the cafeteria food and conversation of those church people on Sunday afternoon. Indeed, that year or two before we moved to Arkansas were the only years I remember my parents being social. My mother went to the hospital once or twice for her "nervous stomach" but she was relatively stable and we as a family seemed normal to the outside world.

When we moved to Arkansas I mourned yeast rolls and rhubarb pie. I didn't miss the coldness and the undertones of the house. But I dreaded, when I went back two weeks in the summer, returning to Arkansas where things had gotten really crazy. I tried, desperately, to tell my grandparents how wrong things were. I gave up when I was instructed to stop talking bad about my mother. Now I suspect that my grandparents couldn't tolerate their own powerlessness.

Put those thoughts on back the burner.

For the last two Sundays, Cameron and I have been going to church and then taking food to her parents since her father broke his shoulder. I am a convenience freak, and would not normally get up early on a Sunday morning to prepare a casserole before church to carry it to a family member. Hell, I wouldn't normally have a family member to carry a casserole dish to. Let's be honest, the parental units are 700 miles away, as is the youngest son. The eldest son doesn't speak to me. So Cameron's family is the nearest family I have.

Put that on the back burner.

Last night Cameron and I attended dinner and the theatre as guest of his brother and sister-in-law. Every year we pick the show, and as a Christmas present they take us out. Last night we saw Foxfire, which is about family and one's land, and roots. It struck deeply for me. I have no roots. They were torn from the ground and shaken when I was ten, poisoned by mental illness and over thirty moves in my lifetime. My family is distant, divided, or deceased. Yet there I sat with my partner and adopted family, accept and loved.

Put it all together and stir the pot.

Family Reunion
Cameron is in the shorts, I'm in the yellow shirt

On our way home this evening, I realized how much I miss what might have, should have, or imperfectly was. Aunts, uncles and cousins that gathered at those Sunday dinners. Forth-of-July family reunions and wedding anniversaries. Cameron's family has graciously given those gifts back to me. Last summer we gathered -- check out the picture. Huge family gathering and the only person not entirely aware of our "gayness" was Cameron's dad, who chooses not to acknowledge it. Cam and I are conspicuously together on the left side.

So going to church today, taking the in-laws food, was a delightful echo of years gone by. The should have, could have, would have of the past coalesced into something imperfect but beautiful, treasured and delightful. I actually spent the week planning the menu: veggie pie, slow cooked chicken, Saltine Toffee and Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies.

I'm feeling daring. I think next week will be Sunday Sausage, Apple, and Cheese Strata and I want to try NILLA Tiramisu Cookie Balls.

Cat and Kittens

This video is public on facebook. I watched it three times! LOL

Cat and Kittens

A Change of Perspective and a Journey through Time

The view from my new desk

Amazing what a change in perspective can do. Of course, in my case, it took two months, being shoved into a dark office and the loss of a window to realize how oppressive a 4 ft x 10 ft office can be. Previously, I could not stand without my chair hitting the wall. I had a double door which clients referred to as the barn door. The connotations are not good.

To the left of my desk

The first class I took when I started this journey was Pastoral Therapy, so I thought of therapy as sacred from the very beginning. I often tell my client that we create sacred space together to experience their growth and change. So now I bring sacredness to this office, with several of Cameron's paintings. Above is a collage she created that expresses both pagan and Christian iconography. I love the drawing together of disparate and yet similar imagery. It's a powerful representation of both mine and Cameron's spiritual paths. Also pictured is a cross stitch Serenity Prayer. I created it for the boy's father, who handed it back when we divorced. It's dated 1983, the year before the I gave birth to my first son and married his father. I love the way it symbolically brings forward who I was and the beginnings of my path. I was 20 years old, about to divorce and remarry. Pregnant. Confused and filled with fear. I hadn't even found the 12-step programs yet, but I was drawn to the prayer. It hung in the boy's father's house above the television in the living room for four years, until we divorced, too. Mercy, I was a damaged child then. Much like my clients.

Entering my office:
my desk, cross stitch universe, and credentials 

When you enter my office, this is what you see. It's a huge desk! I love it! Behind, on the walls, are my credentials and a cross stitch of the universe, completed in 1995. I was 32. Married for the fourth time. I had already been widowed, David buried in the military cemetery in Arlingtonville, Ga. I was in graduate school for the first time and dreaming of tenure and teaching English on the college level. I never dreamed I wouldn't graduate, but would use the theories I was learning as the theoretical foundation of Converse's marriage and family therapy program.

To the right of my desk; I have a window!!!!

And of course, my window! Someone else's client stepped in moments ago to congratulate me on my new office. He doesn't know me, has no idea of my sexual orientation, but said, "I'm so glad they let you out of the closet!"

As I write this, I added the second part of the title. All week I've been thinking of my office as a reflection of my journey. From Arkansas to South Carolina. From broken marriages to an eight year commitment that will last my lifetime. From loss and darkness, from feeling confined in a small space, to the largest office of the building. To a feeling of expansiveness and possibility. Certainly, we still dream of Portland. I feel my future clients calling me. But the journey just got a whole lot more pleasant.

Whew! The weekend after the trip

Arriving home after lunch on Sunday, and then going right back to work on Monday, is a challenge. I go to Safe Homes/Rape Crisis Coalition on Mondays and Tuesdays after work, so I didn't arrive home until late on both days. By Wednesday, it was crash and burn. I got home, fell over in bed, and woke long enough to eat and go to bed. If I have ever hated waking for work at 3:30 in the morning, it's this week!

Monday was especially difficult because my head space was still in Arkansas. It was an extraordinary, transformative week. The joy and ease of staying with my son and his wife was amazing. While I had emotional flashback in preparing to see the parents, yet the visits went well and had their own beauty.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the week was missing my wife. But even that missing had an unexpected joy. I've known for many years the solidity of our relationship. I've long since yielded the fear and doubt and limits of relationships through the sheer constancy of Cameron's love. Indeed, Cameron has demonstrated unfailing love for me, bring profound healing to my life. We've not often been apart, and never for so many days. Arriving home was sweet. I had missed her terribly: )

So it's a quiet weekend. Home made pizza tonight, chicken wings and roasted potatoes last night. Now we lounge on the bed, watching the food channel. At one point we counted 17 cats on the bed. Nevertheless, it's a quiet, beautiful night and I am blessed.