(In)Side Effects
homage to my hips
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top
Photo of Lucille Clifton at end.
My friend Marilyn Kallet reminded me of this poem the other day and the timing was perfect. I was feeling a bit down from my steroid face and body, my breastless left side with its burn and mastectomy scars, the diminishing pleurisy, a new heart problem and limited range of motion from my lymphedema—not to mention my recently diagnosed steroid induced glaucoma. Oh and my bald head. Lovely. The things I used to pride myself on—gone! But I’m more than my body I want to scream but really I am my body, I should have spent more time rejoicing over my body than counting up the flaws.
My daughter Elizabeth and I had a long talk about body image the other day. As a photographer, she says everyone, even the most beautiful among us, hate certain things about their bodies. And she says we only see ourselves in two dimensions (in photos anyway) but the world sees us in 3 dimensions and we are more than our parts.
I am reminded again of the quotation about George Eliot that I put at the beginning of my blog on cancer. Henry James called her one of the ugliest women he’d ever met but within an hour of talking to her you loved her.
On a different matter, my recent cat scan came back with perhaps cancer progression in t-12 In spine, which I’m hoping it’s not. My doc in Knoxville says he’s ordering mri to double check. Yay Dr. Clark! I’ll have radiation to my spine if it looks like cancer. I had an old bike injury at 19 so maybe it’s weird scar/bone tissue. And previous bone scans showed osteoporosis there so it makes since it’s growing since I’m not running or lifting much. Always the optimist.
But no end to this trial. Bald forever I guess. And I’ll try not to feel like an in-valid as I heard someone pronounce invalid. But they did put me in a handicapped room at Hampton inn which has a shower that reminded me of the tiny bathroom I had in China with shower, toilet and a washing machine.
PS love your body. Love yourself. You’ll never be more beautiful than you are now. If you love yourself you might find more love for others.
