Perfect is boring (right Mom?)

February 27, 2009

So Dr. N and I have been talking about my body image and how I feel about myself with all the changes my body has been through this year. He told me about a local artist who paints her own body in startling honesty and how it took her years to be able to do so. I'm just so tired of feeling ashamed of my body. There are a few things that have got me thinking . . .

I was reading this book where the main character was a nude model for an art class at a local college. It wasn't salacious or anything. It just gave her this interesting relationship to her body in the book. And in the book her best friend also did the nude modeling, but her best friend was overweight. As I read, I tried to imagine myself doing that; nude modeling. It was strange how imagining it made me feel about my body. It was freeing. Like, what if art students found beauty in all my scars and marks? What if they thought that my body was interesting? Then I started thinking about what beauty is (again) and what I want it to be. I would so much rather look at something interesting than something perfect. Growing up my mom used to say, "Perfect is boring." It's so true.

I stopped at Antigone Books before my appointment with Dr. N last night. It's a feminist book store in town with great gifts and cards too. I ended up in the back of the store where they had chairs set up like a little living room so you could sit and test drive the merchandise after you perused the shelves. The coffee-table books were displayed near this section. There were quite a few photography ones there and I picked up one specifically that was about women's bodies. I sat down and opened up the book that was page after page nude women. None of them were perfect. Many of them were overweight. None of them had scars like me, but I could relate to their stories about how they felt about their bodies. I was so impressed with their courage. Something lifted in me. This is what's beautiful; women as whole beings. Dr. N talked about that too; that all of these experiences I have had are part of me, but none of them are solely me. That all fell into place in my mind. (Ah shucks, I should have bought the book while I was there. Maybe next week I'll pick it up. It would be good to have around to remind myself of what beauty is.)

So I've noticed this shift starting to take place in how I feel about my body. One, I think my body is definitely interesting looking. And two, my body is only a part of who I am. Even further, the part of me that is my physical being tells its own story about my journey. Anyway, I must have been feeling better because on my way home from lunch with a friend today I stopped and bought a few new items of clothing. It was kind of fun thinking about whether each piece fit this new sense of me that is starting to develop. It was also nice to get some clothes that actually fit me physically too. No more FRUMPY!