The life vest

I spent last week at my parents' new house in North Carolina, on Lake Gaston (pronounced Gastin, not the French way, and also best pronounced with a southern accent).  

Even though they're just over the Virginia border (seriously, at one point we considered swimming to Virginia), it might as well be another country.  It's beautiful there, but man, rural.  Like, rural rural.  Like no internet no cell service rural.  The best internet my parents can get is one and a half somethings.  I don't know what the somethings are, but what it means is that they can't stream Netflix and if someone wants to Skype with their grandbabies in Idaho, their grandbabies in the house with them have to get off their ipads and their daughter (i.e., me) has to get off facebook.

And you can't use your phone as a GPS, because there is no cell service.

One day we went to a flea market.  We poked through antique jewelry, rusted cast iron pots begging to be rejuvenated, and old washboards that unfortunately didn't say anything unintentionally hilarious about rubbing something out.  Oh, and here's how rural.  At one of the stalls, we tried to buy stuff, but couldn't because the seller wasn't around this weekend.  He had his brother manning the stall, but his brother didn't know the prices, so we couldn't buy anything. "Maybe next weekend," we were told.  And this guy let us look at stuff for ten minutes and didn't tell us nothing was for sale until we asked.

It is so rural that stuff at the flea market is not for sale, but people just sit there all day anyway.  Because... there is nothing else to do??  I guess??

Or maybe he just didn't like our Yankee accents and didn't want us wearing his grandmother's old scarf clips.  I don't know.  I don't get it.

Anyway, we found plenty to do in rural North Carolina.  Mostly involving eating, drinking, playing inappropriate and dirty games of telepictionary, and hanging out on the lake.

One day we went tubing behind my dad's boat, and that is the story I really came here to tell.

We took turns on the tube. My adventurous little brother went first, and then the kids had their turns.  Next my brother's girlfriend went, and then it was my turn.  Let me paint this little picture.  My brother's girlfriend is something like a size 2. Actually, I asked her after writing the first version of this.  She's a size zero.  She's an adorable, extremely sweet and cool little size zero person.

So when it was my turn, she handed over the life vest the adults were all sharing, it having been adorably zipped and clipped on her tiny bod a moment ago.

It was a size medium life vest.  I'm a 2X.

So fuck.

It didn't zip, not even close. My heart sank as I tried it on and realized I was going to have to deal with the fact that the generic adult life vest that everyone was using wasn't going to fit me.  It was one of those times.  Those one-size-fits-all-except-not-all-because-not-me times.  

It doesn't matter how much self-love work you do.  When something is supposed to be appropriate for people in general, and you're too big for it, it's devastating and kind of dehumanizing.  Like when a chair has a weight limit that is lower than your weight.  Or worse, when you look at a chair and you wonder.  Will it hold me or will I break a chair? And yes, I have broken a chair.  Only once.  But it only takes once.  

Maybe a thinner person would have broken that chair too because it was structurally unsound.  Or maybe I'm a gigantic non-person who can't have nice things like chairs.  Or life vests.  Or tube rides.

Tube rides is suddenly dirty in my mind.  Just thought I'd share that.

Anyway, all of the big girls out there know what I'm talking about.  It's that moment when you fear you might need a seat belt extender in an airplane.  That moment when you realize there is literally no place you can go to try on and buy a bra.  That moment when they have to swap out the blood pressure cuff.  That moment when you realize that you're too big for something that is fine for (what seems like) everyone else.



It's devastating.

I had a choice in that moment.  Beg off and miss the fun.

Or don't.

I figured before asking if my dad had another life vest, I would see if I could at least clip this little size medium thing around my body, even if it wouldn't zip.

I managed to clip the two clips below hooter level where it fit slightly better, and a funny thing happened. The life vest basically functioned as a sort of bustier, and pushed my boobs up. Suddenly, even next to my size zero almost-sister-in-law, I felt beautiful, with my life-vest-corseted tatas all supported and on display.  It was my kind of beauty, not her kind.  We are both beautiful.  And if I weren't the size I am, I wouldn't have these giant boobs sitting adorably on their life vest bustier shelf.

It was my turn to ride.  I floundered like an awkwardly beached whale trying to get on the tube. And then I had the best time ever flying across the water, in and out of the wake, hanging on for dear life.  It was awesome.  And I was the only adult who didn't fall off the tube. And I was pleasantly sore the next day from the craziness of hanging on as the tube whipped across the lake.  

And my self-love was stronger than ever.

So here's the moral of the story: When life gives you a too-small life vest, turn it into a bustier!

Real

It’s been about a month since my pin-up shoot, and I have gotten wonderful feedback from a lot of people.  I feel seen, which was one of my goals.  It feels incredible to put out an image of beauty in a different size from what we usually see in the world.

But.

I feel the need to do something to balance those images. 

They’re real in that they’re not airbrushed or Photoshopped.  That’s really me and that’s one set of true representations of what I looked like that day.  But I had on two sets of fake eyelashes, loads of makeup, and corsets to change my shape.  My hair was curled and teased, and a professional photographer was pointing hundreds (thousands?) of dollars of lights at me and finding all of the most flattering angles.  And then of hundreds of photos, I chose the best few.

My facebook profile pic.

I didn’t photoshop them.  They’re real.  But also, not exactly.

I have a mini reunion coming up with some old friends from my college dorm, some of whom I haven’t seen in many years.  And I was suddenly like, shit.  What if they think I look like my facebook profile picture?

Yeah, I’ve been using the pin-up shots as my facebook profile pic, because duh.  Of course I am!  They’re awesome and fun and cool and sassy and amazing.  Of course I am.  But I don’t really look like that.  Like, ever. 

This is what I really look like.

The kids learned about photobombing and wanted to photobomb me, so I took a photo exactly as I was.  No makeup, hair not done, no bra.  That’s what I actually look like most of the time.

Here’s another one, in which I am slightly buzzed.  Again, no makeup, no bra, and my favorite FKH8 hoodie.  This is the real me.

When I get dressed up, I look like this.

That’s basically as good as it gets.  And I can only wear those black boots if I’m going from car to restaurant to car.  And the blue shoes gave me a really bad blister and I had to take them off in the mall parking lot and walk back to my car barefoot.

Shall we continue?  Here is me right after the pin-up shoot, makeup washed off, and hair unpinned but still teased.

Here is me in the bikini I wore in the pin-up shoot, just the mirror selfie I took to show my friends.

Here is an adorable photo of me with my kids that I self-consciously cropped for facebook because I thought I looked pregnant. And I made my husband take a bunch more because I didn't like how my neck looked, but the kids were cutest in this one.

And here is the photo that started it all.  A woman on a body love facebook group I’m in posted a photo of her body “challenge area” and invited us to do the same.  So I did.  I posted this photo of my fupa, the hanging skin leftover from my pregnancy that contains fat when I am heavier, and just hangs empty when I lose weight. 

It made me want to puke to post it. I considered deleting it.

But then a funny thing happened.

There was a weird kind of power in it.  A power in showing that thing I was most afraid would be seen.  This is me.  This is real.  And it’s all OK.  So my skin hangs down.  I had twins and carried them to 36 weeks, and that’s what happens (to some women) when you do that.  It’s OK. 

It’s OK.

I am worthy of love, and… dare I say it?  I am still beautiful and sexy.  Even though now you have all seen my fupa.

One of the most common items of feedback I have gotten from the pin-up and bikini photo shoots is women telling me they wish they could do that, but they feel they can’t.

To them I say, you can if you want to. It’s smoke and mirrors and makeup and corsets and an incredibly fun and empowering way to spend an afternoon.

Those of us who try to put sexy plus size images out in the world… we’re crafting and choosing those images in such a way as to change the conversation about beauty and fat and size. But we don’t really look like that either (or at least I don’t).

So let’s change the conversation even further.  You know what is beautiful?  Bravery. Honesty. Vulnerability. Truth.  Maybe it’s not magazine ad beauty, but it’s something stronger.  True beauty has nothing to do with corsets and fake eyelashes and flattering camera angles. 

Show your truth.  Be vulnerable.  Be real. 

You. Are. Beautiful. 

The bikini experiment, two years later

Since the bikini experiment of summer 2011, I have only worn bikinis to swim.  Every swimsuit I have bought or worn for two years has been a bikini.  Wearing a bikini has become a few things for me:  A symbol of my continuing commitment to unconditional self-love, a touchstone for my self-image, and my own little revolutionary act.  I want to be a living example that body love, confidence, and beauty don’t have a weight limit.  Be the change and all of that.  I have a “Be the change you wish to see in the world” window cling on my driver-side minivan door as a daily reminder that we are part of making the world we live in.  I wear a bikini because I want women who worry about their bodies to see me, and worry a little bit less.  I want curvy, large-busted, and plus-size women to see that they have options (Fantasie bra-sized bikinis!)  And, more selfishly, I want to make sure I don’t slide back down into blending in and trying to hide. 

I actually thought I was done.  I thought I had climbed the self-love mountain.  I thought I had arrived somewhere.  Turns out, there’s more to this journey. 

Here’s what happened.  My kids were invited to a swim party. 

To set the scene for this story, let me tell you a little bit about the area where I live.  It’s in suburban Maryland, one of the best school districts in the country, and typically listed as the top 10 “affluent” places to live.  We chose our house because we fell in love with the openness of it and the schools were amazing.  Our immediate neighborhood is racially diverse, which was important to me, and the houses were all built at different times by different builders, carved with restraint out of the woods a plot at a time without strip-mining the place to build a development.  I saw that our income and home price fell well below the median for our school district, and my thought was, “Awesome.  Let their property taxes pay for my kids to go to a kick-ass school.” 

And now my kids go to that school.  And the school rocks.  No lie, it’s awesome. And there are some people like me there.  But there are way more people not-like-me.  Diamonds are big.  Countertops are granite.  Hair is blonde and smooth.  Sometimes brown.  Not blue.  People aren’t fat here.  It’s not allowed.  If you’re fat, you run half marathons or go to “boot camps” until you’re not fat anymore.  You post your exercise on facebook using an app on your phone, and eat lots of skinless chicken and salads. 

So into this weird world, my kids were invited to a swim party.

It was their second one actually.  After much deliberation and gnashing of teeth, I wore my bikini under a dress to the first swim party earlier this summer, but no parents swam at that party, so my jiggling, winter-white, abundant self was kept under wraps.  No other parents swam at this last party either.  Except for me. 

We arrived at the pool, and the parents were all standing around, fully dressed.  I breathed a sigh of relief, realizing I wouldn’t have to expose the bikini to them at this party either.  Or expose what the bikini doesn’t cover.  My daughter immediately started begging me to swim with them.  I showed her that none of the mommies were swimming, and encouraged her to go play.  She did.  But she kept asking.  And the only reason I said no was body shame.  Shit.

What would they think?  Would they think that I thought I looked good?  Would they gossip about me later? 

(I do know that no, of course they wouldn’t gossip about me later.  I know with my brain that this isn’t about them at all.  This is my stuff.  Social anxiety is such a narcissistic asshole.)

Anyway, a bunch of the kids moved to an indoor heated pool, one with a fairly steep drop-off with water over my kids’ heads.  My daughter can swim.  My son can’t really.  Both begged me to come in with them. 

So I did. 

I took off my skirt and seriously considered leaving my tank top on.  But I didn’t.  I took it off and I swam with my kids, while all of the other moms stood around fully dressed with their coiffed ponytails.  When I put my hair in a ponytail, it doesn’t look like that.  I think maybe you have to blow dry or hot roller your hair first to have it look like that in a ponytail, and if you’re going to go to all that trouble, why wouldn’t you just wear it down?  It’s all a mystery to me.  But my kids asked me to swim with them, and my son kind of needed me to swim with them.  So I swam.  In a black bikini.  At 220 pounds.  My son practiced his back float.  My daughter practiced her freestyle side breathing, backstroke, and flip turns. 

I didn’t die.

Not too long after, they moved the party inside to a party room.  I put on my clothes, gratefully, even though my wet bathing suit left two wet spots under my boobs and I couldn’t sit down for fear of also having a wet ass.  I said something to two of the moms about the bikini thing.  I explained about the blog and how I am a body-love advocate.  I explained because, if they gossiped about me later, I wanted at least a couple of people to be able to explain why on earth I was wearing a bikini.  At my size.  One mom nodded politely.  Kill me.  The other mom looked thoughtful and gave me a smile and a high five.  Gratitude.

Be the change be the change be the change.  Fuck.  It’s so hard sometimes.

I’ve gotten to the top of one mountain.  I look in the mirror and I’m happy most of the time.  I wear bikinis.  I am the change inside myself.  I love my body.  I think I’m beautiful. 

But there’s a new mountain.  One made of class distinction and baggage from high school and fear that a weird mom with blue hair who wears bikinis at 220 pounds will somehow stigmatize or marginalize my kids.  The change I wish for is happening in the world too, but slowly.  For that change to come, people like me need to stand up and be seen.  Even when it's hard.  Especially when it's hard. That thoughtful high five, that's the change.  I stand for something, something I believe in very deeply.  I hope that one day, that will be a good thing in my kids’ lives.  I hope that I am one voice among many working to change the world they will inherit.  I accept that one day, probably sooner than I can imagine, they will want me to blend in.

I hope I don’t cave.

Lines and curves

Two years ago, I put photos on the internet of my plus size bod in a bikini.  This past year, the curvy bikini thing has really taken off, and I’m honored to have been a part of that revolution.  But between then and now, my self-love has slipped some.  I’ve gained a little weight, coming back up to my extremely stable set-point.  I’ve had an episode of depression.  As part of that depression, I’ve been less active, so my body isn’t as healthy right now as I like to keep it, regardless of size.  As a body love advocate, it’s hard when I find myself self-hating.  It’s difficult to talk about.  But yeah, that shit happens.

I’m part of a monthly women’s spirituality group.  Once a month, we get together, make a meal, eat, share our joys and challenges, and do an activity.  On Friday night, I was the host, so it was my turn to come up with our activity.  In the past, I have done groups on trance dancing, the tarot, Zen meditation.  Over the years, we have explored everything from feng shui to past lives, dreams to Isadora Duncan. 

I knew I wanted to do a group on body love.  I needed it.  I know most women need it.  As I was brainstorming activities, I remembered posing for my sister, who is an amazing artist, as she sketched me nude.  I had seen her sketches of strangers, the lines of their bodies, the wrinkles, the rolls, the curves and shapes.  I had seen how the “imperfections” were the most beautiful parts.  So I asked her to sketch me.  I watched her click into artist mode, where she was no longer looking at my body as a body, but only as shapes, lines, curves.  In that space, there is no judgment.  There are only shapes.  I wanted to see myself that way.

Before the group met, I tried it.  I took a photo of my nude torso in the mirror, and then used the photo to sketch myself.  I don’t know if it would work for everyone, but I am enough of an artist that it worked for me.  My belly was no longer this sagging thing to be judged or hated.  It was a shape, a curve, that I was trying to accurately capture with my pencil.  It was a completely non-judgmental space and a very transforming way of seeing my own body.

When I finished the sketch, I looked at it as a whole.  It was the kind of body I would wish for.  And it was mine.  As a set of lines, it was easier to see the beauty.  The perfection of the imperfections came across in a piece of art in a way that doesn’t happen in the mirror.  I decided to write over the pencil lines with my thoughts about my body.  I intended to do affirmational positive body talk, but what emerged was just… what is.  “This is my fupa, my apron, my flap.  It used to hold my precious children.”  “This one [my right breast] is smaller and lower.”  No judgment.  Just… what is.  When I was done, I erased the pencil lines, and was left with my body shape, created out of my language about it. 

I was left with a sense of peace.  And this incredibly powerful piece of paper. 

My body, in my own words

The next night, the group met.  We ate and drank and talked.  And then it was activity time.  They did sketches of their legs, their bellies, their smiles.  I watched as they clicked into artist mode, trying to capture the beautiful lines of themselves.  I did a second piece with the group of my face in profile.  I have struggled with my nose for as long as I can remember, and more recently with my neck, which hovers just on the cusp of a double chin.  As a piece of art, though, my nose is the best part.  That roller coaster curve of bridge, bump, and ball.  That’s me.  It’s one of the defining curves of my body.  Although slightly larger in person than it is in this drawing, that curve of my nose is what makes this image identifiably me. 

Faces are way harder to draw.  If you try this at home, maybe don't do your face.  Because dude, hard.

If you struggle with body image, I encourage you to try this activity yourself.  In the aftermath of it, I feel a kind of calm acceptance I haven’t felt before.  It’s different from the exuberance, the “I am one sexy bitch,” of the bikini project.  This is a quiet love.  An acknowledgment of what is, without judgment or the desire to change it.  These curves are me.  These words and thoughts are me.  I am a perfectly imperfect piece of art.

The big time

This week, a high school friend posted a link on my wall of this gorgeous plus size woman in a bikini.  She was just like me.  Over 200 pounds, gall bladder scars, stretch marks, within a cup size or two of my prodigious hooters.  I look at her body and see only beauty and a flatter stomach than I could ever dream of, but for her, showing her body was a very big deal.  Just like it was for me. 

Except that she’s already kind of famous, so her post got picked up by Huffington Post, and then talked about around the world.  Big girls in bikinis are suddenly news.  Oh, hello, envy, how nice to see you.  Hi, slight tinge of bitterness, yes, yes, you did do this a year and a half ago and it was not picked up by the Huffington Post.  I know.  Shhhh.  Simmer down.

So, I did what any self-respecting blogger would do.  I stalked researched the hell out of her.  Turns out that she is effing awesome.  Her name is Brittany Gibbons.  She’s funny and real.  She doesn't like to wear a bra.  She reads smut and uses the word fupa in her blog.  OK, the more I read, the more I love this woman.  I want to be her new stalkery best friend.  (OMG you guys, she accepted my facebook friend request.)  She started an online magazine called Curvy Girl Guide. She appeared on Good Morning America in a bathing suit (one-piece at the time).  Her rationale for doing it was "Be the change you wish to see in the world," the same motto I have on a sticker on the driver's side door of my minivan so that I am reminded every single time I get in the car.  She did a TED talk in which she stripped down to a bathing suit on stage.  I love her.  Here’s the other thing I learned while stalking her, both from her TED talk and from an article written about her:

All of this attention she has gotten for showing her body has not been universally positive. 

People give her shit about her body.  People say that she is promoting an unhealthy lifestyle.  People call her fat and tell her they're surprised she managed to get a husband.  Two things.  One. Fuck those people.  Fuck them.  Two.  I’m really, really glad that’s not me. 

I posted my bikini photos, fully expecting that the 200 of my nearest and dearest friends would see them.  Instead, it was in the tens of thousands.  I still get hundreds of hits a week on that page.  My bikini adventure was a crazy wild ride for me given the small scale of my blog.  You know how many negative comments I got? 

One.

One person, not even on my blog, but on BlogHer’s link to my blog on facebook, said that I was glorifying an unhealthy body size.  Hundreds or maybe thousands of people were inspired to love their bodies more, and lots of them told me so.  One person made me feel like I didn’t deserve to love mine.  But of course that one cut me.  Of course it did.  It was outweighed by the outpouring of support, but it takes a lot of positive messages to counterbalance one negative one. 

Here’s what I learned from this.  You need a thick skin to hit the big time, and I don’t have that.  I pretty much have the thinnest skin around.  I’m not ready for the big time.  I’m not ready to absorb negative comments as the price of increased exposure.  I find myself grateful that my bikini post was not the one picked up by HuffPo.  I’m glad that strangers are not criticizing my body and making incorrect assumptions about my health.  And hurting my feelings.

I’m intensely proud to be part of the body love revolution.  But I don’t need to be the poster girl.  I’m glad I’m not the poster girl.  And the girl who is the poster girl?  She’s awesome.  Go read her blog.  Especially this post.  And this one.  And this less funny but very real and honest one. And then if you want to laugh again after that last post, this one.  

Hit on at the grocery store

Yesterday I got hit on at the grocery store, by a stock boy probably young enough to be my son. I mean, I would have had to have been preggo with him in high school, but still, technically, I suspect it would be possible. I should be less pleased than I am, but damn, it’s such a nice ego boost. This week, I began writing a blog entry titled, “The long, slow fade of giving a shit.” It’s about how I feel invisible as a woman, and how that feeling has entered into some kind of feedback loop with my inherent sloth and laziness, causing me to wear less and less makeup, blow dry my hair less and less frequently, and wear comfier and comfier shoes. That invisible feeling, that “Why should I put on earrings? No one is looking at me” feeling, it has really been dragging me down lately. (And now I don’t have to finish that entry, because I just summarized it for you. Score one for the lazy sloth!)

But nothing can perk up a lazy, invisible sloth like getting hit on at the grocery store.

I’m walking down the soup aisle. Stock boy is putting soup on shelves. I grab some chicken broth in a can. I probably won’t even need to use it, because I have a chicken carcass in the freezer and would much rather make the stock from scratch, but if I don’t have time (see above re: lazy sloth), it’s nice to have the cans in the pantry. Stock boy glances up and says “Hello.”

I smile, actually look at him, and say, “Hi.” I look at him because I try really, really hard not to treat people like they are invisible. This behavior was apparently sufficiently odd as to earn me a once over and a smile big enough that maybe it could be counted as an invitation.

Thanks, stock boy, but I am someone’s wife, and someone’s mother, and I could be your mother. So no thanks. Smile back and move on.

In the next aisle, I look at my list… and realize that I have forgotten something in the soup aisle. Crap. Crap crap crap. Lipton beefy onion soup mix. I have to go back. I’m almost out of that magical secret ingredient. I can’t go back. He’ll think I’m hitting on him. Come on, Pam. You’re a middle-aged woman wearing no makeup with air-dried hair, and wearing extremely comfortable shoes. Just go get the damn soup mix. He probably won’t even notice.

He notices. He raises his eyebrows and gets this sort of self-satisfied look. It’s nice to know that I probably gave him a little accidental ego boost too.

“So, what are you making us for dinner?”

As pick-up lines go, it could use some work. Kid, I am old enough to be your mommy, and if I WERE cruising the grocery store in search of a tender young thing for my bed, I would not want to be reminded that you are so young that your mommy probably still cooks for you. And possibly still cuts up your steak.

I didn’t say that. I sputtered out something about grocery store sushi (the traditional post-grocery-shopping dinner in our house), trying to make it clear that I was not inviting him to join me.

“I love sushi. Or, you could come over to the fire station and I could cook for you.”

Damn, stock boy actually has some game. I don’t have the fireman thing. Some firemen are cute. Some are not. The mere presence of a fire hat does not cause me to drop my panties. But for some women, the fireman thing combined with the offer to cook? Not bad, stock boy, not bad.

I don’t say that either. I laugh it off and go back to looking for beefy onion soup mix. They don’t carry it. Damn.

And I’m off to the baking and spices aisle. Did you know that saffron costs $20 for a tiny little envelope? This soup had better be delicious. I’m definitely going to have to make the stock from scratch now. But I didn’t go back to put back the canned broth.

I should really close this little story with some uplifting comment about how beauty comes from the inside and how we don’t need anyone else’s validation to feel sexy. Self-love, confidence, blah blah blah. Yeah, that crap is awesome, and nothing replenishes it like getting hit on by a 20-year-old.




[Edited to add that the beefy onion soup mix is NOT going into the same soup as the chicken stock and saffron. Because those three together? Ew. I use the beefy onion soup in beef stew, meatloaf, etc. The saffron is for a pumpkin-shrimp bisque.]

200 pounds in a bikini

A few weeks ago, according to the oddly addictive blogger stats page, someone found my blog by typing “200 pounds bikini” into google. Curious, I tried that search, and then immediately wished I hadn’t. The first result was Urban Dictionary’s entry for “bikini beef,” the extra bulges resulting “when the wearer exceeds the legal bikini wearing limits.” The second result was someone relatively thin asking the Yahoo Answers community how she looks in a bikini, with a bunch of strangers criticizing her body in response. Results 3 and 4 were people talking about losing weight in order to be able to wear a bikini. My “Rock your bikini” post was #5. The 6th link was a female blogger who feels “VERY STRONGLY” that there should be a size limit on bikinis, using words like “disgusting” to describe women like me.

I am very glad that my perspective is in that mix.

I’m all for being fit. It is important to me to exercise and eat intelligently so I can be here for my kids and give them a good model of healthy behavior. Despite what my generous proportions might imply, I take care of my body and treat it with respect. I am 37 years old and I weigh 200 pounds, and I am healthier and in better shape now than I was at 20 when I weighed 140.

And I actually think I am more beautiful now than I was then. Maybe not by any objective criteria, but there is a spark in me that has grown over the years into an inferno.

It’s my life force. My energy. My chi. My sexiness. My confidence. My mojo. It’s the thing Maya Angelou is talking about in "Phenomenal Woman." It’s That Thing. I didn’t really have it at 20, or if I did, it was still mostly curled up asleep. But I have it now. And it’s awake and alive and expanding every day. It’s spilling out through my skin and my eyes and my breath. And I believe with every fiber of my being that it is That Thing that makes a woman beautiful. We all have it in us. It just needs to be invited and nourished.

It’s fair to say that this bikini experiment has changed my life. I wear a size 16 and I carried twins to nearly 37 weeks. It would be very easy to find things to hate about my body. But the more I have shown it, the more I love it. This body has been good to me. It carries my brain around and mostly does what I ask it to do. It has given me so many amazing gifts: that feeling of pleasant soreness the day after a workout, the smell of fresh basil and a sun-warm tomato, the sound of my children’s laughter, the view of a sunset on the Amalfi coast, the wild abandon of dancing all night, the taste of a perfect kiss. This body gave me my children. And it is beautiful. Even in a bikini.

It bulges in some places and sags in others. Does anyone really think that makes me less beautiful? Isn’t that the craziest thing you’ve ever heard? Nothing… NOTHING can make us less beautiful unless we allow it to.











Photography by the amazing Rebecca Palmer at Lifescapes Photography. The photos are retouched for razor burn and child-inflicted bruises, but my body shape, bulges and all, has been left 100% untouched by Photoshop.

The fake bake

I spent the morning at a local spa getting exfoliated from head to toe and then smeared with sunless tanner in preparation for the bikini photo shoot. (The shoot, by the way, is postponed until this weekend due to thunderstorms, and also because I couldn’t get the tanning appointment until today and the goo has to set on my skin overnight. Another side note, why does being tan make us look healthy when it is actually completely unhealthy? So annoying. Anyway, moving on.)

I’m actually excited about postponing the shoot because my sis will be sailing in the Chesapeake for the holiday weekend, so there will be the possibility of some shots on the boat in addition to beach shots. Options are good. Ropes and rigging are even better. Maybe I’ll bring the sexy boots after all…

But back to the fake bake. The aesthetician was completely sweet. She was a teeny tiny little thing, but she didn’t bat an eye when I told her I needed the full body tan treatment for a bikini photo shoot. She asked what the photo shoot was for, and I told her about the blog and tried to explain, without getting into my whole life story, how empowering this has been for me.

At one point, she noticed a tiny scar on the inside of my elbow, because the tanning fluid was pooling in the scar. She asked what it was from, and I explained it was from giving blood repeatedly. I am a very good blood donor. It’s easy for me. I don’t get squeamish, or faint, or anything. I don’t miss a pint give or take. The only time I have ever noticed any effect was the time I accidentally gave blood on Mardi Gras, not realizing what day it was. Later that evening, I was a hurricane and a half in, trying to figure out why my proprioception and balance were doing major loop-de-loops, when I remembered that I was a pint low. I was an extremely cheap and giggly date that night.

In the course of the blood donation conversation, it came out that she has never weighed enough to give blood. I asked; the limit to give blood is 115 pounds. I weigh nearly twice what this woman weighs. And you know what? It doesn’t matter at all. I had no emotions about her smearing sunless tanner on my thighs, which are probably the same diameter as her waist. I just measured a thigh to see if that is really true, and yes, it probably is.

I spent some time yesterday looking at photos of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models on the web. I figured if I am going to call this a “swimsuit edition” of the blog, I should know what I am referencing. I also wanted to get posing ideas*, look at the hair and makeup, etc. I looked at dozens and dozens of swimsuit models, and I was surprised how… neutral I felt about it. They look lovely. Young, thin, fantastic abs that have clearly cost plenty of time at the gym, large stationary hooters that have clearly cost plenty of money. I’m not a hater. They look beautiful. I just don’t like that we think we have to look that way in order to show our bodies. I wish we saw more varied kinds of bodies in bikinis, at the beach, at the pool, and in magazines. But none of the images, page after page of flat toned stomachs and long thin legs, made me feel any less beautiful or any less excited about my upcoming photo shoot. Self-love, once you find it, is apparently pretty resilient.

That is so cool.



* Regarding posing ideas, not so much. Lying on one’s side in the sand looks fantastic when one’s hooters stay where they are regardless of gravity. Not so in my case. My wonderful supportive bikini tops only combat gravity when it is going in the expected direction. When gravity is suddenly pulling to the side, I wind up with one “organic” ta-ta in the middle of my chest, one under my armpit, and neither in the bikini top where they belong. Similarly, lying on my back with my back arched, while sexy when I am naked, also leaves me with an oddly empty bikini top.

It begins

Yesterday, we had a play date with another set of twins, two boys who are six months older than my little monkeys. They played together really well, sharing, taking turns, making up games together. It was a delightful morning, but one thing happened that has me feeling a little sad for the end of an era, come too soon.

One of the little boys noticed that my daughter’s teeth are different. She is congenitally missing her top lateral incisors, just like I am. Those are the teeth just next to your two front teeth. If you look closely at my smile, you might notice that the teeth next to my front teeth are actually my pointy canine teeth, moved forward and slightly shaved down to look less vampirish. Or maybe you never noticed.

It mildly bothers me from time to time, like when the contestants on American Idol hold a big note and I see their perfect line of pearly whites close up, literally larger than life on our excessive TV. But in the scheme of things, this is so not something I spend time or energy worrying about. My parents made the decision to move all of my teeth forward rather than getting false teeth for the spaces. At the time, I didn’t like that decision because it meant 3 years of braces rather than 6 months, but after watching a friend of mine with the same teeth missing spend thousands of dollars dealing with false teeth, I am grateful for the simple solution my parents gave me.

Anyway, back to the play date. I honestly don’t think my daughter ever had any clue that her teeth were unusual, until yesterday when her friend pointed it out. I handled it as well as I could. I told her that she is beautiful and that her teeth are just like Mommy’s. I explained to her about braces, saying that when she is big like Mommy, a dentist will put special stickers on her teeth to make them look like Mommy’s, and that her brother would probably have special stickers on his teeth too.

She still just looked really thoughtful and sad. She said she wanted “lots of teeth” like her brother. It just about broke my heart.

And then her friend, innocently… these kids are all only four, remember… told her she looked like a beaver. At this point, I was so bummed about my daughter’s first body image issue that I didn’t even find it funny that she was chanting over and over “I am not a beaver.” I hugged her, told the other child not to call her a beaver, and reiterated her beauty. I didn’t know what else to do.

She was apparently talking about it again later with my sister. I can’t believe my child is not even quite four yet, and she has already lost the innocence of believing that her body is perfect in every way. I am hoping, with all my heart, that this is something that falls into the amnesia pits of childhood and she goes back to thinking that the sun rises and sets in her stunning smoke-colored eyes.

But whether or not she forgets, I will do all I can to remind her every day that she is the most gorgeous and amazing little girl I have ever seen in my life. That it is her differences that make her sparkle, her uniqueness that makes her who she is, the gaps in her teeth that give her the smile that lights up my life.

Someone loved each of us that way once. Breathe that in. And again. Your differences make you sparkle. Your uniqueness makes you who you are. Light up the world with your smile, gaps and all.

Self-love vs. the nose tampon

I have a cold… in the SUMMER. It’s not fair. And it’s one of those really drippy colds, the kind that leaves your nose red and raw from wiping and blowing. The kind of cold that spurred the making of tissues with lotion in them.

There are not many things that will completely eliminate my vanity. Extremes in temperature will do it. Like when the thermometer starts to creep below 15°F, I bypass my cute hats and jauntily wrapped scarves for just as much stuff wrapped around my head and face as possible. Or when it is approaching 100 in both temperature and humidity, I will finally sometimes put my hair in a ponytail.

This cold is an anti-vanity cold. I mean, I already look completely gross. Remember that scene in Friends, where Monica is sick and trying to seduce Chandler, and says (through a stuffy nose), “Are you saying you don’t want to get with this?” Yeah, that’s me. Without the seduction.

Oh, one more thing that’s different from Monica. (Yes, only one. In all other ways we are exactly alike.) Monica is still rubbing at her drippy nose. I have stopped bothering, and am now sporting two lovely pieces of tissue rolled up and hanging out of my nose like nose tampons.

Nose tampons are awesome. It’s just easier! You don’t get that red crusty nose thing from too much wiping and blowing. And you don’t have to wash your hands every 5 minutes because you’re not constantly having to deal with your face goo. Sure, it’s kind of embarrassing, but if you can get past that, it is a fairly sanitary way to deal with a drippy nose.

But I need to go to the grocery store today. I mean, I have to go. And while the nose tampon is more sanitary and decreases the likelihood that I will leave tiny particles of my germ-filled snot on the grocery cart handle, I don’t think that even I can rock a nose tampon in public.

The bikini’s big day out

Well, I did it. I rocked my bikini on a public beach. I wrangled kids and squatted on a blanket to find grapes in the cooler, and bent over to help my kids get their shoes on, and untangled kites, and did all of the normal beach things in a bikini in front of strangers. And it was completely fine. I was not the only bikini-clad larger woman there. There were a few others. No one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. Children didn’t point at me and loudly ask their mothers, “Why is that fat lady wearing a skinny lady bathing suit?” I was really the only person who seemed to think this was a very big deal.

Full-length photos are coming here, I promise. I have the photo shoot lined up for the 28th, weather permitting. My kids were in the photos from yesterday, so I’m not putting them up here. But I put some photos on facebook. A few people seemed to wonder why I was making such a big deal out of the bikini thing. Others said they wished they were bold enough to rock their bikinis. One woman asked where I found such a supportive top. (Fantasie and Freya make great big-hooter bikinis.) So yay! Maybe she will be shopping for a bikini to rock. If even one woman buys a bikini because of me, really, I will be so happy I don't even know how to convey it. I went out last night with a good friend, and she asked me why I have so much confidence. Where does it come from? Why do I get to put on a bikini and walk down the beach like I own the place?

I don’t have a clue.

I didn’t always have confidence. I used to struggle over what to wear, how to fit in, what people thought of me. I still do sometimes. I haven’t magically transformed into a completely different person. But the possible and imagined evaluations of others are losing their power for me, and it feels amazing. Maybe it’s just age. Maybe it’s my mom’s teachings finally kicking in a couple of decades later. Maybe it’s all of the therapy or the time spent meditating and soul-searching. Maybe it’s being a mother. I wish I knew. I wish I could bottle it and make a fortune. Or no, I wish I could bottle it and give it away.

Because I truly wish, with all my heart, that every woman could love her body.

If I figure out the secret, I’ll let you know. Til then, I’ll just keep sharing my journey in hopes that the secret is somewhere in here, between the lines.

Ditch the cover-up. Rock your bikini.

Well, it’s official. I wear bikinis. I weigh a cheeseburger or two over 200 pounds, and I wear bikinis in front of other people. It started with family, but now a few of my close and more skin-tolerant friends have been subjected to the display. And you know what? No one has puked yet at the sight of my stretch marks and extra jiggle. They notice. They say something, because size 16 women who have had twins do not wear bikinis most of the time, so it’s worthy of note. Also, they know me well enough to know that if they said nothing, I would assume that they were horrified. I can read more negative stuff into someone’s silence than anyone else I know. It’s a gift.

Last summer I wore a swim dress. Yeah, that skirt kind of bathing suit, the kind that covers as much of the body as it is possible to cover while still calling the garment a bathing suit. I think maybe in a weird way, I would look fatter in a swim dress at this point than I do in a bikini. By just putting it all out there, well, it’s just out there. Under a swim dress, it would look like I was trying to hide something.

I’m done hiding.

A couple of nights ago, I put on one of my new bikinis and took some photos with the timer function on my little point-and-shoot camera. I know what I look like—my bathroom has floor-to-ceiling mirrors, so every time I get out of the tub, there I am (seriously, what crazy person thought that was a good idea for a master bathroom?!)—but that image in the mirror doesn’t always translate to photos. I often see photos of myself and gasp in horror, wondering who the hell that fat old lady is and what she’s doing wearing my clothes. So before I lined up a photo shoot with my sister to do a “Swimsuit Edition” of this blog, I wanted to make sure I was really ready to show the world photographs of my body (where by world, I mean the 100ish people who read this blog, most of whom already love me).

The photos were great. They show what is. Strong muscles and a healthy body under a generous layer of fat. A woman who has given birth and shows the scars. It’s not scary or horrible. It’s a very average kind of body. Compared to how I looked a year ago, I look awesome. Compared to women who usually wear bikinis, I look like a whale. But I am so very done comparing myself to other women. Done. If I can forget what I know (or what I think I know) about how I’m “supposed” to look, it is so much easier to feel beautiful and comfortable in my skin.

In a weird way, wearing a bikini makes me less conscious of my fat. In my swim dress last summer, I spent more effort than seems reasonable worrying about whether my thighs looked fat. I weighed 230 pounds. It’s fair to say my thighs looked fat. But I would try to sit in ways that would keep them from squashing out and looking bigger, or I would just bypass the issue and stay standing, or recline so I could arrange my legs in the classic “one leg slightly more bent than the other” pose that somewhere along the line women learn is the most thigh-flattering. In the swim dress my thighs were the only part of me that anyone could see, and they’re not my best feature. In my bikini, everyone can already see everything. I am almost naked. What’s the point of trying to pretend I am not fat? I am exactly the size I am. Who cares?

This bikini experiment has been one of the most liberating and empowering things I have ever done for my body image. If you’ve ever even remotely considered it, and even if you haven’t, I encourage you to find a bikini.

Buy a bikini. Rock your bikini. Because our bodies are beautiful. If you feel sexy and gorgeous in your bikini, you ARE sexy and gorgeous in it. I believe that with my whole heart. Nothing is as beautiful as confidence and self-love. Good posture, a smile, and a look in your eye that says, “You wish all of this was yours.” That is all you need. You don’t need to lose 15 or 30 or 50 pounds to wear a bikini. You just need to lose self-loathing. Losing weight is way easier, but until you love yourself, you will never be thin enough or young enough or pretty enough. The minute you know you are beautiful, you are enough. Just as you are.

So be on the lookout later this summer for the Pam-a-rama ding dong Swimsuit Edition. I’m not going to post my no-makeup, post-shower test shots done in crappy lighting with a consumer camera on a 10 second timer, even though they are totally hot. Because I am fabulous and a diva and only professional photography can properly capture what I am trying to convey. But rest assured, bikini shots ARE coming to this blog. Soon.

Bye bye, bait-and-switch

I hit a big weight loss milestone this week, or two actually. First, I am halfway to my goal. I’ve lost twenty-eight pounds. Twenty-seven to go. But the bigger milestone for me is that this week I weigh what I weighed when my husband and I got engaged. Not quite yet down to what I weighed at our wedding, a weight that was achieved using unhealthy means when my dress arrived just a bit too tight, but I now weigh what I weighed when he decided that I was the girl for him. I know he doesn’t value me for my waistline. I know he loves me and thinks I’m beautiful at any size. But there is still something comforting to me about being back at the size I was when we were dating.

It happened gradually. A pound here, a pound there. Eating more frequently at restaurants. Making a meal because we’re a couple, when I would have had a bowl of cereal if I had been alone. Having evil things like Doritos in the house because he likes them. Watching more TV than I otherwise would, an activity that just goes so darn well with snacking. And age, and hormonal changes, and popping out a couple of kids, and eating leftover Kraft mac and cheese off of their high chair trays, and getting takeout pizza at the end of exhausting days, and eating too much McDonald’s because they had Batmen or My Little Ponies in the happy meals. It happens. It happened.

This summer will be our 9th wedding anniversary. In those 9 years, not including the unhealthy wedding weight loss that came back on almost immediately, I gained nearly 30 pounds. A few pounds a year. Never really noticeable at any given point. I am blessed with a body that can hold quite a bit of weight. I gain all over, and stay proportionate. So my comfy jeans became my regular jeans, and I got some new comfy jeans, and a few years later, they became my regular jeans. While it’s certainly covered under “for better or for worse,” perhaps marriage vows really need a “for thinner or for fatter” clause, because I know I am not the only one who got married and then found themselves buying bigger and bigger comfy jeans. Hubs was on the same trajectory, and had gained about 20 pounds over the years. He recently lost a bunch of weight too, after a cardiologist scared the bejeezus out of him. He is actually now a little below what he weighed when we got married. He lost 25 pounds in 2 months. Men suck. It’s not fair. But moving on.

I’m thrilled about my weight loss, because I know I am doing it in a healthy way, and I know it is lowering my risk for all kinds of crap. I also admit that looking better is a very nice plus. But it’s bringing up some baggage. I never realized it, but I guess there was a part of me that felt like I had pulled a bait-and-switch. “Oh, honey, you know that pretty girl you married? Yeah, she’s gone. I ate her. You get me instead.” Weight loss has highlighted how much of my concept of my own value is tied up in physical appearance. It’s not something I like knowing about myself. I hope it is something I can avoid inadvertently teaching to my daughter. And my son too, of course, but I think of this appearance = value issue as primarily a woman thing in our society. I hope I can teach my daughter to love and value herself for what is inside, and I hope I can teach my son to value women for what is on the inside too. Like his dad.

Maybe if I keep teaching it to them, some day it will sink in for me.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, some photos of my trip up and down the scale. It was easy to find photos at 8-10 pounds thinner than my peak weight, but there are almost no photos of me at the very top of the mountain. The only ones I could find were from the Maryland Faerie Festival last year, complete with kooky dreads and headpiece, but it will still give you the idea.

Self-love vs. the belly

Despite my roller coaster ride on the upper end of the BMI scale, despite my generous nose and my crooked smile, despite my emerging gray hair, wrinkles, and age spots, I have always had a lot of self-love and confidence. I would be lying if I said I never looked in the mirror and saw something I wished I could change, but all in all, even at my highest weight, I have always thought I looked pretty good, and I have always felt sexy. And even when I struggle with self-image, I am always grateful to have a healthy, strong body that mostly does what I ask it to do.

A few years ago, pre-kids, when I was dancing with a belly dance troupe, someone in the troupe asked, “Who here likes their body?” I don’t remember who asked, or why. I think maybe it was supposed to be a rhetorical question, a sort of, “May she who is without self-loathing throw the first stone.” But I answered, “I do.” No one else said yes. These were beautiful women. Stunning. Lovely. Most were younger than me and prettier. All of them were thinner than me. I remember being completely shocked. I have since come to realize that I have an unusually high level of self-esteem for a woman of my... um... generous proportions. And maybe a high level of self-esteem for a woman in general. But there is one thing that I am having trouble loving.

The belly.

It was never cute (well, not since college anyway, and even when it was cute, I didn't think it was). It has always been my challenge zone. And then, it housed two humans for 8 months or so. Now it looks like a war zone. Stretch marks. Extra skin. No, seriously, a LOT of extra skin. And a mild but annoying diastasis, basically meaning that the two halves of my (nonexistent) six-pack are separated from each other, leaving a hole in my abs and making me look just a little bit pregnant.

You know what would fix all of those things? A tummy tuck. I would never have dreamed that I would consider cosmetic surgery, but to be honest, I think of a tummy tuck for most twin moms as reconstructive rather than cosmetic. A crazy thing happened to our bodies, and they are not the way they were before. It’s actually disgraceful that women with more extreme diastases can’t get them covered by insurance. In my case, I am still able to work out and I don’t have back pain, but a lot of women have problems from back pain to hernias, and it is still mostly out-of-pocket to get the repair. Don’t get me started...

Anyway, about a year ago, I set a ludicrous goal for myself. I told myself that if I reached my goal weight, we would find the money to get me a tummy tuck. At the time, it seemed like a pipe dream. My weight loss goal was 55 pounds. Before this year, I had never successfully lost more than about 15 at a time. A 55-pound weight loss would put me 48 pounds down from my pre-pregnancy weight. It would put me 20 pounds down from my wedding weight, a weight that was achieved using Dexatrim and crash dieting. I think the last time I was at that weight was 15+ years ago, when I was in my early 20’s. So, although 55 pounds of weight loss may not seem like that much, and my goal weight number is probably a “before” number for most people, for me this goal was completely pie in the sky.

I thought the imaginary magical tummy tuck would be a motivator, but I didn’t really think it would actually work. Well, huh. Twenty-five pounds down, thirty to go. I am only ten pounds away from my wedding weight. It might take another year or two, but I am starting to think this might actually be possible. And then what?

Tummy tucks are an extremely common topic of discussion among moms of multiples. I don’t know many who would not get one if money were not a factor. (There are probably a few, but not many). Obviously, money is a huge factor for us. If I have a stray $10,000 lying around, and I don’t, I really shouldn’t be using it to repair my midsection. Can’t I just self-love my way through this? Can’t I learn to love the belly?

I want to. I do. I have considered getting a tattoo that celebrates the fruitfulness of my body that led to the hot mess that is my belly. Unfortunately, tattoos and stretch marks apparently don’t mix well. I have stood in front of the mirror naked, and tried to see myself as some sort of fertility goddess. But really, does anyone want to look like the Venus of Willendorf? We can admire what she represents and celebrate the divine feminine, celebrate that our bodies bring life into the world, but does anyone really want her pendulous breasts and belly? Sorry Venus, but I don’t.

I am seriously considering belly dancing in public again, exposing to strangers the region of my body that I have the most trouble loving and accepting. I am even bikini shopping, not that I would ever wear a bikini in public. But at home, I think it would be good for me to let the belly out once in a while. (And yes, they do make bikinis for hooters like mine – yay!). Because when I am afraid of something, I head into it full on. I am afraid to let people see what my body looks like now. So that tells me that I have to do it. Part of me even considered taking photos of the belly and putting them up here, but I’m not ready to do that yet. Maybe some day. With really forgiving lighting. Maybe if I find a bikini I like, I'll do a "Pam-a-rama ding dong Swimsuit Edition." Then again, maybe not.

If I ever reach my goal weight, I don’t know what I’ll do. Would getting a tummy tuck be making some kind of statement about how I feel about myself? Or would it just be repairing damage done to my body by an extreme pregnancy? Will I ever be able to look at those stretch marks and that extra skin and feel sexy and beautiful? I still have a lot of self-love, but I just can’t love the belly. Except that it brought me my two beautiful kids, so I guess I do love it after all.