Part I:
Things I am currently obsessed with:
- The power of looking – the gaze, what it means if that’s how you’re recognized as queer? Is that a kind of power that I want? Is it active or passive (or something else)? How much I look and what kind of desire is behind it? What kind of power do I have when men stop and stare at me on the street? What kind of power do they have (and how do I take it away from them, if only in my head!)?
-Risk society and neoliberalism and how they come together so perfectly to create self-regulation and guilt instead of allowing us to see larger power structures and demand more of them (i.e., actually demanding universal healthcare). How utterly irresponsible I think most public health is in how it furthers our obsession with risk society. In fact, I think deepening our risk paranoia may be most public health’s primary purpose, which I really don’t have any respect for.
-That I like putting prepositions at the end of sentences.
-Healthism. What would our lives look like if we didn’t expect to be healthy all the time? If we didn’t take it as a personal failing when we aren’t?
-That I don’t believe in the beautiful, I think it’s coercive, I’m attracted to people who are usually seen as unattractive, and yet I’m so fucking vain. What’s that about?
- That a fat activist friend asked if I’d lost weight because she wanted to talk about the issues if it was purposeful, and I said no, but then weighed myself for the first time in a very long time and she’s right. This had the odd effect of making me feel out of touch with my body and kind of mad at her for bringing it up and making me think about it, since I have a pretty strict no-comment policy on my body and weight, and yet I understand her wanting to talk about it.
- That new york city is small in such a strange way. I keep running in to former students. Someone I’ve known since jr high booked me for a toy party without knowing it was me and that was weird. And yet nothing makes me happier than when I run in to people I love on the street in such a big city.
- What would queer cultural competencies look like for interpreters and are they even possible? How do you create cultural competencies for something that defines itself as unstable? But since all cultures are unstable, how do you create cultural competencies for anything?
-That the good side in Harry Potter doesn’t stand for anything interesting. It stands against fascism and eugenics, and that’s clearly great, but in the end the good side is still just England, with all its bureaucracy.
- That so many of my friends are obsessed with dating and scarcity and this obsession makes me really sad. I think we have to be whole – or not – on our own and in communities that are working to break down their own hegemonies and this scarcity fear just reinforces fucked up hierarchies. And yet I don’t know how to break down those hierarchies.
-That I feel so alive in my body recently and that’s incredible.
-That I’m not sure I can ever move to the west coast because I think “non-violent communication” is actually unbelievably violent and horrifying, and it’s incredibly popular in radical communities in cities over there.
- That I want Sarah and I to finally write our book called, “Fat, Late, and Messy” about the moral weight put on things that are seen as disorder. I swear this book wouldn’t just be self-serving.
-That so far turning 30 has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I feel strong and fearless (more about that in a minute) in a way that feels totally unexpected.
Most of these could be full posts, and maybe/hopefully they will be some day, but mostly, in a way that feels pretty frivolous, I want to write about yoga. Yoga!
Part II:
First, a yoga class in vermont, and then a yoga class in brooklyn. The vermont yoga class was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever been to. It was the day before Thanksgiving and the class was being taught by a substitute teacher. To start class she said, “The holidays are such a frantic time! I’ve seen people rushing around all day [note: this is in a very small town. I don't know what people she could be talking about] so to prepare you for this stressful time we’re going to do 45 minutes of poses and then I’m going to read to you and you’ll meditate for the other half of class.” What? In my opinion you can’t just spring that on people. Then, during the incredibly short portion where we actually moved, this teacher couldn’t decide who she wanted to be – part of her wanted to be reassuring and tell people they could make all sorts of modifications and part of her wanted to make my sister (who is amazing at yoga and was clearly trying not to show off) get up in front of the class and model the terrifying extreme versions of poses. Knowing that my sister has been traumatized by this kind of calling out since 2nd grade, I felt really bad for her (I’m being serious).
But here’s the interesting part, for me, of this totally silly class: it was easy. I mean, I know, yoga isn’t about being easy or hard because every pose benefits the body, blah blah blah. But, stepping back in to the way we actually think, this was easy for me and I haven’t had an easy yoga class in a long time. At first I kind of felt like I was wasting my time, but then I realized, “Wait, you mean all those times I’m struggling and feeling like I’m going to die in yoga class it’s because I’m choosing to do something hard!” Choosing. And I can choose to do something hard, that gives me actual agency, versus just feeling like it’s all so fucking hard and my body can’t do. In other words, knowing there was something that felt too easy made me feel more excited to do the thing that feels hard.
So then, I’m back in Brooklyn and I decide to go back to bikram yoga. For me, like a lot of people, bikram yoga makes me want to die while I’m in it, but afterward it’s the most amazing high and that high lasts for hours (as does the redness in my face). Anyway, I’m at bikram with this teacher who is a total hard ass. She keeps telling me I’m not allowed to make modifications, which kind of pisses me off, and that I just have to try harder and I’ll be able to get in to all the poses. Then at some point she comes over and tells me I am filled with fear, that she can see the fear, and that’s why I can’t do a pose. And let me tell you, part of me wanted to tell her off. I wanted to tell her that I’m fat, so my body doesn’t fold over on itself the way hers does. I wanted to tell her, how dare she tell me I’m full of fear – I’m fucking fierce, that there’s no way she could know how much strength it takes to dress the way I do, to not hide my body, and still walk down the street, and yell back at the daily street harassment. I wanted to tell her that I am fearless in getting what I want even when it’s hard. I wanted to tell her that I am fearless especially in how I fuck – what kind of pain I can take, the way I can push myself, the way my body can open up in ways that years ago I would never have thought possible.
But you know, that’s all pretty inappropriate, and not really the point anyway. So I decided instead to take what she said seriously and to take it at face value. What I mean by that is, I decided not to assume that she using fear as a roundabout way of saying that the fat on my body is protection against something, and will go away once I’m no longer scared (which is what my best friend thinks was she was saying). I decided instead to just accept the idea that in this specific way, right now, I am still scared of my body. I mean, we’re all taught to be terrified of having a body – that if we don’t spend every minute of the day hating them and regulating them that our bodies will completely betray us and go out of control. It’s pretty hubristic to think I would have somehow expunged all that body fear already. Anyway, there is no triumphant ending to this story and I don’t need there to be. It’s not like once I accepted this then suddenly my body did something totally new. I’m just processing what it means to accept being told that this teacher can see my fear, and to think about what would need to happen – how I would need to push myself – to get past that fear. Plus now it’s hours after the yoga class and I’m still so full of endorphins that I feel like a fucking superhero.
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