May 14, 2004

  • Giddiyap


    I told you yesterday that on the list of the things I was doing, was "NOT eating chocolate."  It's a weird thing about me, and apparently I'm in a weird mood because I'm about to tell you.  I have this one day every month when I absolutely MUST have chocolate.  There is always chocolate in the house, in fact - wanna see Momi's Medicine Shelf?  (I haven't packed it yet ... )



    Yes, that's not one, but two bags of Ghiradelli squares.  Simply because I crave chocolate, I refuse to eat it.  I know, it's a head game, but it makes me feel like I have control over myself.  Of course, if I really had control, I could probably eat just one ...


    No one asked me what poems I was reading yesterday.  I noticed this but I'm not taking the hint.  I'm going to quote one at the end of this blog. 


    In a conversation I had yesterday with a friend, who for the purposes of this blog shall remain completely annonymous but is a male ... now aren't you all wondering?  I made a statement about myself.  It wasn't a flattering statement about my appearance and he reacted strongly to it.  In fact, I think it would be fair to say that he pretty much read me the riot act, and he even made a couple of valid points that I've been thinking about ever since. 


    It's true in ways that I forget every day that the things we say become our reality.  If I speak of myself in negative terms, other people, even if they protest my statement, will see me in a less positive light.  Obviously, saying that I'm fat doesn't change the size jeans I'm wearing.  But it can change the perception of the person listening to me.  And that was point number one, perception is everything in human relationships. 


    The second point is that size has nothing to do with beauty.  I have been both smaller than I am right now and larger by several standard deviations from the mean in either direction.  I know from direct experience is that the size of the body has nothing to do with whether a person is beautiful and even less to do with capacity to give and receive pleasure.  This isn't new wisdom, I've heard it since we were children that you can't judge books by their covers, beauty is only skin deep.  Sir Francis Bacon said, "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."  But for some reason I forget that when I look in the mirror.  I see hips just a little wider than TinkerBell's and I start thinking that I've outgrown the possibility of happiness.  I see legs a little shorter than Barbie's and I start thinking that I'll never measure up to my dreams.  I see breasts, arms, lips, and other parts and I forget that I'm not my parts, I'm a whole person.


    I've discovered, and I believe this to be a universal principle, that the most beautiful people I know are the ones who see me.  A person who looks into my eyes and connects with me, shows me soul and relates to me, that person is beautiful.  Doesn't matter what kind of clothes or body the beauty is wrapped in, I know it and bask in it's glow.    


    I've been reading the poetry of Nikki Giovanni and if you haven't discovered her yet, you are missing a treat.  She's raw and earthy and honest and in your face and tender and all the things that I like best about contemporary poets.  One of the poems I read yesterday is called Giddiyap ...


    my old man is fat as he can be
    my old man is as wide as the deep blue sea
    what I do for him he does for me


    we don't fly and rarely take a train
    mostly we enjoy our own terrain
    sitting in a rocker in the rain


    singing


    giddiyap horsie giddiyap
    giddi giddi giddi giddiyap
    giddiyap horsie giddiyap
    giddi giddi giddi giddiyap
    rinding on the top of a silver lined cloud singing giddiyap out loud


    my old man says he would lose for me
    get as slim as i would want to see
    but all that him is him enough for me


    i'm not lazy neither am i shy
    i don't worry neither do i cry
    when he touches me i want to die


    shouting


    giddiyap horsie giddiyap
    giddi giddi giddi giddiyap
    riding on a rainbow cloud singing shouting giddiyap out loud


    Now if that don't make you want to get with your honey and have a good evening, all I can say is I don't understand you at all.  Me?  I'm taking a bubble bath and painting my toenails.  Happy Friday everyone.


     


    PS - My boys have discovered Elvis ... so we are also listening to the King.  Life is really good. 

Comments (22)

  • I can't even remember what most people look like (including myself) or my warpped brain turns it into something else. I know from experience that I'm rarely remembered. I geuss the most important thing is making your self happy. Cause everybody lives in their own little world and in the end it is the things they we say and do that penetrate that atmosphere.

  • Yeah! Preach it phunkypuhnk!
    What you say is true. It's all about the connection between souls. And Elvis. All things being even I still wouldn't mind being Elvis.

  • I'm a chocoholic too. I could never go without it.

  • I don't fight the chocolate craving anymore. I have some every day, even if it is just a cup of cocoa at night.

  • You know, most days I look in the mirror and what I see is not at all what I look like, I see things that have happened over the years...like the scar from this accident or something from that point in time...not really anything that anyone else sees. It always shocks me when I see myself in pictures, because it's NOT what I see in the mirror at all.

  • Ha, ha, ha ..... Is that a bottle of Ibuprofen on top of the chocolate? How appropriate, since that is about the time of month both are needed ....

  • yes - that is indeed ibuprofen sitting atop the chocolate. 

  • for so many reasons.. i love what you had to say here ... and it was what i needed to read tonight.

    ~me

  • This is something I'm truly starting to grasp..the whole self preception...liking me...and then another.  And I know I'm lucky, to have friends who see me for whats inside, and not the size of my jeans..( although the drama of the last weeks really helps that one out..lol)  I hear every word you are saying here...every one. 
    The things we say become our reality
    You got it.  whew!

    Have a great weekend!
    xoxo
    Jen

  • I wonder what others see when they look at me.  Not pretty, not ugly....does something come from within that makes me loveable.  Your blog was well received.  thanks.

  • I read that about never using degrading talk in front of men, and I know it serves no productive purpose to use it otherwise either

    we're all human, somedays are better than others

  • This, right here, is why I like you. 

  • The things we say become our reality:  I struggle with this, having learned to put myself down before anybody else could as a defensive tactic in grade school.  Various pagan priestesses I've worked with have taken me to task for it, saying "Don't put that in the Law," but self-deprecation is a persistent habit.

  • My appearence is very rarely remembered its my present that is...I have truly enjoyed reading you site and looking forward to see what come next.

    love and sunshine
    Kaziophia

  • I'm bad about doing that, too.  I agree that it isn't good to speak those words about ourself.

  • Great blog, really smart fellow who told you that too. It is a very hard thing to internalize but well worth the effort I believe. Being positive, motivated and real is the grandest of challenges. So hard and yet, the reward is boundless.

    Take care of you and the lads. Remember that you now walk your own 'horse trail' so it is you that must take hold of the reins and 'giddiyap'!

    sail on... sail on!!!

  • Sometimes, while shaving, I'll pause for a few moments and really, really look closely in the mirror.  Just to see what other people think I am. 

    I don't feel my age, so I'm not.  It's that easy.

  • yes...  life IS good.

  • Okay, besides the ibuprofen comment, I had meant to comment some more. I totally agree with your whole blog. I think most of the times we are too critical of ourselves, more so than others are to us. On the same note just because I acknowledge we probably are too hard on ourselves, I still have a hard time stopping myself from being my worst critic .... so I picked up my first sorta self-help help book "Loving Yourself - Four Steps to a Happier You". Loving myself, now that is just a strange concept isn't it? When do we have time in our busy schedules of loving and caring for our family for something like that? The concept is so foreign, that I haven't been able to get through the first page. I got stuck right after reading the following quote "You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection - Buddha". I'm like HUH, what does that mean? ;)

  • wow-sa. i'm internalizing so much right now. you have said (quite eloquently) what i have been trying to explain to myself (and others) for quite a while.  i also have been a rollercoaster of weight. I weighed 150-160 lbs. and was the unhappiest with my body i had ever been in my life. i looked in the mirror and just saw the most hideous thing in the world. not to mention the extra 20 lbs.  i thought i needed to lose. (i'm 6', so that would have put me in a model's body)

    needless to say i hated the way i looked. i now weigh 190 lbs. and am the happiest i have been with the way i look since i hit puberty. it's a struggle. and until it's realized (not only by yourself, but by others as well) that the way you look doesn't make you who you are, it will sadly continue to be a struggle.

    and for those who think that "looks make the person", i'm sorry. and that's not an apology.

  • and Elvis ROCKS!!

  • Ooooh yes, I'm all for getting with the honey and having a good evening -- but I have Board meetings and school meetings and kid pick-up and dishes and.......

    ......damn, how sad is all this??

    Thanks for sharing these wonderful thoughts.  I love your philosophical turn of phrase.  I could easily spend hours pouring over your careful writings.

    I owe you an email in the worst way.

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