“Oh, thanks.”
I try hard not to let out disappointment through my sigh as Caroline hands me the clear, water-filled baggie. It’s bulging and reflecting the only sliver of sun that shines in from the outside world.
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At the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Béla Károlyi’s star gymnast, Mary Lou Retton, stuck the landing of her full twisting Tsukahara vault, earning a perfect 10.0 and the individual all-around gold medal. At age four, I loved her teammate, Julianne McNamara. She had strawberry blonde hair like me. My sister and I begged my parents to register us for gymnastics. At my first practice, I studied the older girls and followed every direction. At pick up I asked my mom, “Can I come back tomorrow?”
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For the long first act of my life, as a painfully shy kid growing up in Culver City – steps away from the Sony Pictures studio lot, the iconic Gone With The Wind mansion, which was right by the movie theater downtown, and down the street from the liquor store where they filmed the infamous McLovin scene in Superbad – dating and romance was something I experienced entirely through the silver screen.
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My two young children, clad in neon swimsuits, danced around impatiently in the backyard, checking on the progress every now and then. Our new inflatable pool—turquoise and gray with an attached blow-up slide—was being filled with the garden hose; it was taking forever for any noticeable progress. It was mid-June and the Wisconsin weather was in the low 70’s; I wasn’t about to tell my kids that even when the pool had filled to an acceptable volume, the sun still had to heat the water, cold and sputtering from the spigot, and that it was likely to take days, not hours.
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Suspended above the Delaware River, I can no longer time my contractions. The fierce waves of pain sweep up my facility to do anything but breathe. Breathe I do, with an equally fierce grip on the vinyl door handle of my husband’s pickup truck—never more thankful for its heated leather seats. As my insides constrict, my fingers squeeze the handle tighter. When my muscles release their grip, I release mine, measuring my breath with a will resolute.
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In high school, my philosophy teacher assigned each student a different question and corresponding primary sources for our term paper. He assigned me the question, “Are women free?” and handed me a Sandra Bartky article that outlined the fragmentation, domination, and objectification the female body endures.
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We didn’t know the beauty we would find there. It wasn’t an obvious dazzling beauty. It needed to be unearthed, searched for. Our clothes stuck to us as we ambled off the plane. The heat and strong odors of others, of ourselves, pressed in on us. We cranked our windows down in the taxi as broken Soviet buildings rushed by. Their gray concrete stark against the sharp neon green of the trees and grass.
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He poured his second, maybe third vodka tonic. He didn’t even look at me as he eased his six-foot-something frame through the sliding glass doors onto our deck. His words grazed by me as he sat down in the folding chair placing his drink on the small table between us, next to his worn copy of Machiavelli’s, The Prince.
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I stare into the camera, waiting for my cue. In the background, a shelf displays the brightly colored toys of my childhood, rendered in the fuzzy technicolor of a 1990s video recording. Next to me, a stuffed King Kong gazes off-screen.
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My daughter’s fortieth birthday is soon, and I’m looking for something special for her. It’s a tradition in our family. At particular milestones, the mother gifts the celebrant with a special piece of jewelry, other “heirloom” from her own life. I’m looking for a piece of my history—something of me to stay with her as she moves toward all she’s becoming. When I turned forty, my mother surprised me by crocheting a lovely blue throw that I still can snuggle under on cold nights. I don’t have time to create something, so I sort through my jewelry box, looking for just the right thing.
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I’m seated in the passenger seat of my old gray Prius teaching Zahra how to drive. She is in the driver’s seat intently watching the traffic light, waiting for the moment it turns green. I sit quietly so I don’t disturb her concentration. She’s wearing a black blouse with long sleeves and black pants on this hot summer day; her headscarf is absent. I’ve known her long enough to know that she wears a headscarf only when she wants to. “It’s not for religion,” she’s told me before, stopping short of telling me why she sometimes wears it. I’m wearing a short skirt and a tank top in light colors. Despite our different appearances, I feel a strong emotional kinship with her.
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It is a beautiful, crystalline Saturday morning, early, 8:00 a.m. I pull on my lilac-colored capri pants, the ones with the pocket for my phone so I can listen to my music. I put on my spongy, perfect black socks and the running shoes I love so much, cushioned from every sidewalk crack by a substance like clouds.
And then I’m out the door.
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I build up speed as my blades dig into the ice. Cold air stings my face the faster I go, but I don’t care. My pre-teen brain disconnects from my body and dreams my big thoughts of having that cute boy in math smile at me, coming up with a snappy comeback to my sixth-grade nemesis, or being a reporter like Woodward and Bernstein. The Dutch Waltz plays over the loudspeaker and while moving forward on my right foot, I lean into a strong inside edge, and position the heel of my left blade near the right, to transfer my weight onto a left back inside edge. The Mohawk. Forward, backward—I am flying, and I can be anything.
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I’ve never seen the rooster next door that crows at dawn. And during thunderstorms. And during the ubiquitous fireworks—this is Oaxaca, after all. In the afternoon, when he’s tired of scratching at the same dirt hoping to find something different, but it’s just the same fucking dirt, he crows a little louder.
“I hear you,” I whisper over the fifteen-foot wall that separates us. “I feel you.”
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I rush to the quai in the Gare de Lyon in Paris. Flinging my small case on the train, I jump on. Moments later the train pulls away along the track, heading to Nice.
Slumped in my seat, I can relax, breathe, and observe those already settled in my compartment. Business people, couples, and single travellers surround me. One small figure catches my eye—a lady in her early sixties, dressed in a double-breasted camel hair coat, green beret, and smart brown leather gloves. She is elegant, with red lipstick. The slight nervousness of her fidgeting hands is familiar.
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I leapt from the car, Bible in hand, and burst through the door of the West Chicago Baptist church.
“Slow down.” my mother shouted as I descended the stairs to my Sunday School classroom and flung open the door. I didn’t care about the message for the day, but I couldn’t wait to see my best friend, Judy Wesman.
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“I’m done,” says Leigh, her voice full of defeat. But she’s angry. There’s always anger.
I heave a sigh, and my shoulders slump. “I think I am, too.”
My eyes are puffy and red, my nose feels like it’s clogged with cement. I need some Advil. And a drink.
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I thought, for the split-second between my brain recognizing that I was being called out to speak and my mouth automatically responding, that I should give a fake name.
I always had an inexplicable liking for “Veronica.”
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The week I got back home to New York after spending my junior year of college in England, two unexpected things happened. I got a phone call offering me an internship in Manhattan that I’d been rejected for months earlier and my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
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I saw my weight today. A healthcare provider who didn’t take my history of an eating disorder into account put my
weight on my visit summary, completely unaware that her subconscious act would terrorize me
for the rest of my day. In a more hopeful vein of my recovery, I finally found a therapist who specialized in eating disorders, ending a months-long search for the recovery holy grail: an ED-trained therapist who also accepts insurance.