I was up last night crying because my mother made some “suggestions” over lunch about cosmetic things I should think about “fixing”. I’m 36, she’s 73. I have a young daughter now and I’m horrified by this cycle and desperate to break it.
“I get to be inside of myself looking out at the world,” is something I will repeat to my daughter endlessly. Thank you so, so much for these words 🙏🏾
Well, you've made me cry in a very good way. There is nothing to fix, and your daughter is lucky to be learning from you. We truly all have so much to teach each other. Thank you so much for reading my work and sharing your experiences with me.
My apologies, ORH--the way you included the line, I thought it was yours (my attention span doesn't always catch things). And the way you shared the line in your story really hit resonated and hit home.
A long time out from bulimia and at 51, I was thinking on a walk today about how I'm okay still being "x" amount of "focused"on my size and shape. It is a light-filled shadow of the dark, lurking presence it used to be.
And I am so grateful for how you shared the line and to move forward with the energy of your sharing sweetly humming in my cells and to enjoy "looking out" more often versus any unproductive "looking at."
I’m so grateful for your openness. Although your story is different than mine, it’s so similar. Fragile mothers and their children. My mother was 54, also a suicide that seemed to go on for a decade. From 9 to 19 I watched. What I want came to say is 51 is so terribly young. So is 54. When I was in my 20,’s I thought I’d be an old woman with a long gray braid at 35. Lol. I’m 70 and I have all those eating disorders behind me but am dealing with the harm it did. Im ok, really but you’ll make it to 51 and still be younger than your sad mom. You’ll keep going and hopefully the distance will bring always deeper peace and understanding. Thanks so much.
Absolutely beautiful. Tattoo these lines on my soul, "that I get to be inside of myself looking out at the world, instead of looking at myself from the outside, through the eyes of the beauty and diet industries."
Beautiful essay, thank you so much for sharing. I live with spina bifida and scoliosis and have always felt ashamed of my body and wanted to escape it for a "normal" one. Now in my mid-30s I am trying to enjoy all that has given me and continues to give me everyday. This essay was a reminder of that.
This is so beautiful. Thank you for your deepest thoughts and beautiful writing.
My mother was also gorgeous and made it a top priority in the exact same ways! It was her currency (along with intelligence and humor), but as an alcoholic, it all spiraled out of control. She tried to kill herself a few times when I was a kid. Watching all these dynamics in play was very hard to process (still is). When she insisted I start modeling at 14, I hated it (but kept it up for quite awhile). It was a world that constantly told me I was too much. The last thing I wanted my daughter to do was believe her looks had anything to do with her value (I succeeded!)
Thank you so much for being open and sharing your story. It resonates with me. The part at the end when you talk about being comfortable in your body looking out rather than outside looking in (apologies for the poor paraphrasing!) but just WOW! That really strikes a chord. Felt that right in my gut. Thank you!!
I am glad I didn't read this on my phone and saved it for my laptop. This was nothing like I thought the headline indicated it would be. I mean your writing is amazing, honest, and engaging. I found myself smiling and mentally punching the air at the end - to see you overcome all of this (and so so much) and find peace with yourself. It's essays like this that I want to see more of for those of us who are parenting young girls now (I have an eight year old) in the middle of all this aesthetic chaos. Adding to my saved posts. Thank you Anastasia (gorgeous name too!).
If I was walking when I read this, it would have stopped me in my tracks. I'm glad for the author to be doing well in spite of so much pain. What a well written essay, you have a great well of talent!
Just today, I made a group of women laugh when we were reflecting how Seventeen magazine and its models affected our self images. In the 1960s. I recalled that when Time Magazine covered the Twiggy phenomenon I grabbed my mother’s sewing tape measure to compare with Twiggy. I was in the sixth grade and was horrified at the number I read--and thought, “oh no! there goes my modeling career”--although the number was wrong because I had twisted the tape going around my back. I was eleven. It was many years before my bust measured 48 inches, after I bounced from Rubenesque (in the words of a next door neighbor) to plump to anorexic to “normal” to pregnant to divorced and anorexic again and all the way up to overweight on the BMI scale. Now in my late 60s writing like this is really helping me come into alignment with my physical embodiment. Thank you, Anastasia.
I feel so odd. I was so drawn in by this piece, it was potent writing and feelings I have felt myself and then I was shocked to come to the final photo and see what my brain perceives as a thin person. It's not a problem or anything, I just wasn't expecting it. I think one of the things diet culture and beauty culture do is create an eternal unattainable of thinness. It doesn't matter how thin you are, you should always be thinner. Like, thin unto death. I FEEL WEIRD and I loved this article and thank you for making me think my thoughts.
I’m so glad you loved my piece, Aisha, and I understand your complicated feelings. I assure you, I am fat. I am a size 18, which makes me mid-size, but my weight puts me into the “morbidly obese” category. I’ll admit that feeling the need to state that here feels strange. Should I be fatter in order to have permission to write something like this? Should I have used a photo that more clearly shows my fat rolls and big belly? idk. And idk if I will always be fat, tbh, because my weight has fluctuated. I also acknowledge that there are many people in larger bodies than mine who face more discrimination than I do- but then again- what this essay is truly about is how, no matter the size of our bodies, diet and beauty culture consume and destroy us from the inside. No matter what my body size is at any given moment, I know that for sure.
I think that was what was hitting me, and my weight has fluctuated as well in and out of morbidly obese, was that our assesment of our own weight against the thin ideal always lands differently than our assessment of other people's. Like, no one is hitting the mark of being thin enough for themselves because the point of the mechanism is for it to be eternally out of reach. Thank you for replying to me and I in no way want to invalidate your fat body or anyone's, you shouldn't have to explain your body. I apologize for that.
You are 100% right with that, and it’s an impossible mark when we are taught to hate ourselves. I’m glad you responded and grateful you read my writing, and I especially hope that you can find some joy and/or peace in your body today. ❤️
thank you for introducing me to anastasia and assembling remnants! I was studying linguistics at SU from 2018 to 2020 so we just missed crossing paths there :)
Thank you, Anastasia, for your courage, your truth, your generosity, your LIFE. In reading LaoTzu this morning (Witter Bynner translation), these lines from #23 resonated with me and, after reading your story, I recognized a Way follower.
Oh goodness, these lines are a lovely accompaniment to Anastasia’ piece.
Have pulled up the Witter Bynner translation/version. Have loved and stayed close with the Dao most of my life since high school. May I ask if you are familiar with Jonathan Star’s version or Stephen Mitchell’s? My two faves (I’m still looking for additional translations that resonates and no luck yet. When I search the Witter Bynner translation, I only see an audible version and then one that mentions Wittner’s name and also Terebeth Asia (do know anything about this or do you have a link to Wittner’s translation or is the one I found the right one?).
Many thanks for referencing the Dao so wonderfully here 💜
I forget how I came upon The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu, translated by Witter Bynner; it's been so long ago, and because this translation is so "forthright and congenial," to quote Bynner, I memorized much of it without trying, or remember patches of a selection enough to track it down -- as I did after reading Anastasia's essay. You can find it on ebay by the exact title above.
If you do get this book be sure to read the introduction, for many reasons but especially to learn about Bynner's approach to translation. He didn't speak Chinese but spent two years in China and also collaborated for 11 years with an ethnic Chinese scholar translating a major work, developing "an assiduity in finding English equivalents for idiom which literal translation fails to convey." Some of the Tao Te Ching sayings, he was told, "jingle repetitively with a surface lightness like that of nursery rhymes."
So for me, Bynner sets a high bar. However, I'm curious about your favorites (new names to me) and see the possibility that comparative readings would reveal more about this beloved philosophy.
Now if you, or anyone else who might be reading this exchange, can recommend a translation of The Art of War that hasn't had the life choked out of it ala Thomas Cleary and his ilk, I would so love to know what's in that book. Thank you for your reply to my comment.
Many thanks for your response, Diana and great input! Comparing passages/sections can be so fun and illuminating...
Love how Bynner puts what he was told about jingling and surface lightness...
As Coleman Barks does with Rumi’s work (Coleman is “the Rumi” most of us know in the western world, I believe), I imagine Stephen Mitchel’s to be very true to what Lao Tru intended...
Barks’ translations of Rumi have to be the most widely adored and disseminated. Feel like Coleman “channels” Rumi’s essence and intent...
Feel the same about Stephen Mitchel’s translation of The Dao--he is such a prolific translator and scholar around so much, it has long felt to me that--at his core--he is “tapped” into something very deep, true and timeless 🦋
My understanding is that it is Stephen Mitchel himself reading his translation, but not sure if that is correct. No other “oral” representation of the Dao that I’ve found holds the energy and essence so well via voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxEvRoAaYBM
Of course reading the sections/lines in a “real” book is more magical and I always want to support authors by buying their books, but the two above links are pleasant starting points.
A project in my brain for a while would be doing my own take on it as it pertains to our consumptive habits, esp--but not limited to--our food, eating, body (incl. body “image”) and being(ness). That’s still a bit out, and I have some deeper diving to do with my inner mystic and even more time with the Tao/Dao.
Would love the same with The Art of War 💫
So adore this exchange, Diana. Wishing you and yours a lovely fall 🦋
I am overwhelmed by this piece. Thank you for sharing with us.
Thank you so much, Lyndsey, for reading.
I was up last night crying because my mother made some “suggestions” over lunch about cosmetic things I should think about “fixing”. I’m 36, she’s 73. I have a young daughter now and I’m horrified by this cycle and desperate to break it.
“I get to be inside of myself looking out at the world,” is something I will repeat to my daughter endlessly. Thank you so, so much for these words 🙏🏾
Well, you've made me cry in a very good way. There is nothing to fix, and your daughter is lucky to be learning from you. We truly all have so much to teach each other. Thank you so much for reading my work and sharing your experiences with me.
"I get to be inside of myself, looking out at the world."
So lovely 💫🪷💫
My apologies, ORH--the way you included the line, I thought it was yours (my attention span doesn't always catch things). And the way you shared the line in your story really hit resonated and hit home.
A long time out from bulimia and at 51, I was thinking on a walk today about how I'm okay still being "x" amount of "focused"on my size and shape. It is a light-filled shadow of the dark, lurking presence it used to be.
And I am so grateful for how you shared the line and to move forward with the energy of your sharing sweetly humming in my cells and to enjoy "looking out" more often versus any unproductive "looking at."
Your
I’m so grateful for your openness. Although your story is different than mine, it’s so similar. Fragile mothers and their children. My mother was 54, also a suicide that seemed to go on for a decade. From 9 to 19 I watched. What I want came to say is 51 is so terribly young. So is 54. When I was in my 20,’s I thought I’d be an old woman with a long gray braid at 35. Lol. I’m 70 and I have all those eating disorders behind me but am dealing with the harm it did. Im ok, really but you’ll make it to 51 and still be younger than your sad mom. You’ll keep going and hopefully the distance will bring always deeper peace and understanding. Thanks so much.
Thank you Gari. Sending you much love and healing. Thank you so much for sharing your experience, and for reflecting my own.
Absolutely beautiful. Tattoo these lines on my soul, "that I get to be inside of myself looking out at the world, instead of looking at myself from the outside, through the eyes of the beauty and diet industries."
Thank you <3. If there were words tattooed on my soul, I'd choose those ones, too.
I will never forget these words. Truly words to live by!
Beautiful essay, thank you so much for sharing. I live with spina bifida and scoliosis and have always felt ashamed of my body and wanted to escape it for a "normal" one. Now in my mid-30s I am trying to enjoy all that has given me and continues to give me everyday. This essay was a reminder of that.
This is so beautiful. Thank you for your deepest thoughts and beautiful writing.
My mother was also gorgeous and made it a top priority in the exact same ways! It was her currency (along with intelligence and humor), but as an alcoholic, it all spiraled out of control. She tried to kill herself a few times when I was a kid. Watching all these dynamics in play was very hard to process (still is). When she insisted I start modeling at 14, I hated it (but kept it up for quite awhile). It was a world that constantly told me I was too much. The last thing I wanted my daughter to do was believe her looks had anything to do with her value (I succeeded!)
Thank you so much for being open and sharing your story. It resonates with me. The part at the end when you talk about being comfortable in your body looking out rather than outside looking in (apologies for the poor paraphrasing!) but just WOW! That really strikes a chord. Felt that right in my gut. Thank you!!
Thank you so much, Karey, for reading and sharing how my writing affected you. I so appreciate it~
I am glad I didn't read this on my phone and saved it for my laptop. This was nothing like I thought the headline indicated it would be. I mean your writing is amazing, honest, and engaging. I found myself smiling and mentally punching the air at the end - to see you overcome all of this (and so so much) and find peace with yourself. It's essays like this that I want to see more of for those of us who are parenting young girls now (I have an eight year old) in the middle of all this aesthetic chaos. Adding to my saved posts. Thank you Anastasia (gorgeous name too!).
If I was walking when I read this, it would have stopped me in my tracks. I'm glad for the author to be doing well in spite of so much pain. What a well written essay, you have a great well of talent!
Thank you so very much for reflecting here. It means so much to me!
Just today, I made a group of women laugh when we were reflecting how Seventeen magazine and its models affected our self images. In the 1960s. I recalled that when Time Magazine covered the Twiggy phenomenon I grabbed my mother’s sewing tape measure to compare with Twiggy. I was in the sixth grade and was horrified at the number I read--and thought, “oh no! there goes my modeling career”--although the number was wrong because I had twisted the tape going around my back. I was eleven. It was many years before my bust measured 48 inches, after I bounced from Rubenesque (in the words of a next door neighbor) to plump to anorexic to “normal” to pregnant to divorced and anorexic again and all the way up to overweight on the BMI scale. Now in my late 60s writing like this is really helping me come into alignment with my physical embodiment. Thank you, Anastasia.
Thank you so much for reading, Anne. This is a cultural lineage, and we all need to break free.
I feel so odd. I was so drawn in by this piece, it was potent writing and feelings I have felt myself and then I was shocked to come to the final photo and see what my brain perceives as a thin person. It's not a problem or anything, I just wasn't expecting it. I think one of the things diet culture and beauty culture do is create an eternal unattainable of thinness. It doesn't matter how thin you are, you should always be thinner. Like, thin unto death. I FEEL WEIRD and I loved this article and thank you for making me think my thoughts.
I’m so glad you loved my piece, Aisha, and I understand your complicated feelings. I assure you, I am fat. I am a size 18, which makes me mid-size, but my weight puts me into the “morbidly obese” category. I’ll admit that feeling the need to state that here feels strange. Should I be fatter in order to have permission to write something like this? Should I have used a photo that more clearly shows my fat rolls and big belly? idk. And idk if I will always be fat, tbh, because my weight has fluctuated. I also acknowledge that there are many people in larger bodies than mine who face more discrimination than I do- but then again- what this essay is truly about is how, no matter the size of our bodies, diet and beauty culture consume and destroy us from the inside. No matter what my body size is at any given moment, I know that for sure.
I think that was what was hitting me, and my weight has fluctuated as well in and out of morbidly obese, was that our assesment of our own weight against the thin ideal always lands differently than our assessment of other people's. Like, no one is hitting the mark of being thin enough for themselves because the point of the mechanism is for it to be eternally out of reach. Thank you for replying to me and I in no way want to invalidate your fat body or anyone's, you shouldn't have to explain your body. I apologize for that.
You are 100% right with that, and it’s an impossible mark when we are taught to hate ourselves. I’m glad you responded and grateful you read my writing, and I especially hope that you can find some joy and/or peace in your body today. ❤️
Wow .. I’m in awe of your strength and self awareness.
thank you for introducing me to anastasia and assembling remnants! I was studying linguistics at SU from 2018 to 2020 so we just missed crossing paths there :)
We just missed each other!!
Thank you, Anastasia, for your courage, your truth, your generosity, your LIFE. In reading LaoTzu this morning (Witter Bynner translation), these lines from #23 resonated with me and, after reading your story, I recognized a Way follower.
". . .
That whoever follows the way of life feels alive,
That whoever uses it properly feels well used,
Whereas he who loses the way of life feels lost,
That whoever keeps to the way of life
Feels at home,
Whoever uses it properly
Feels welcome . . ."
Oh, this is such a high compliment. Thank you. <3
Oh goodness, these lines are a lovely accompaniment to Anastasia’ piece.
Have pulled up the Witter Bynner translation/version. Have loved and stayed close with the Dao most of my life since high school. May I ask if you are familiar with Jonathan Star’s version or Stephen Mitchell’s? My two faves (I’m still looking for additional translations that resonates and no luck yet. When I search the Witter Bynner translation, I only see an audible version and then one that mentions Wittner’s name and also Terebeth Asia (do know anything about this or do you have a link to Wittner’s translation or is the one I found the right one?).
Many thanks for referencing the Dao so wonderfully here 💜
I forget how I came upon The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu, translated by Witter Bynner; it's been so long ago, and because this translation is so "forthright and congenial," to quote Bynner, I memorized much of it without trying, or remember patches of a selection enough to track it down -- as I did after reading Anastasia's essay. You can find it on ebay by the exact title above.
If you do get this book be sure to read the introduction, for many reasons but especially to learn about Bynner's approach to translation. He didn't speak Chinese but spent two years in China and also collaborated for 11 years with an ethnic Chinese scholar translating a major work, developing "an assiduity in finding English equivalents for idiom which literal translation fails to convey." Some of the Tao Te Ching sayings, he was told, "jingle repetitively with a surface lightness like that of nursery rhymes."
So for me, Bynner sets a high bar. However, I'm curious about your favorites (new names to me) and see the possibility that comparative readings would reveal more about this beloved philosophy.
Now if you, or anyone else who might be reading this exchange, can recommend a translation of The Art of War that hasn't had the life choked out of it ala Thomas Cleary and his ilk, I would so love to know what's in that book. Thank you for your reply to my comment.
Many thanks for your response, Diana and great input! Comparing passages/sections can be so fun and illuminating...
Love how Bynner puts what he was told about jingling and surface lightness...
As Coleman Barks does with Rumi’s work (Coleman is “the Rumi” most of us know in the western world, I believe), I imagine Stephen Mitchel’s to be very true to what Lao Tru intended...
Barks’ translations of Rumi have to be the most widely adored and disseminated. Feel like Coleman “channels” Rumi’s essence and intent...
Feel the same about Stephen Mitchel’s translation of The Dao--he is such a prolific translator and scholar around so much, it has long felt to me that--at his core--he is “tapped” into something very deep, true and timeless 🦋
My understanding is that it is Stephen Mitchel himself reading his translation, but not sure if that is correct. No other “oral” representation of the Dao that I’ve found holds the energy and essence so well via voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxEvRoAaYBM
Jonathan Star’s is lovely to me and very straightforward: http://taisa.si/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Tao-Te-Ching-by-Jonathan-Star.pdf
Of course reading the sections/lines in a “real” book is more magical and I always want to support authors by buying their books, but the two above links are pleasant starting points.
A project in my brain for a while would be doing my own take on it as it pertains to our consumptive habits, esp--but not limited to--our food, eating, body (incl. body “image”) and being(ness). That’s still a bit out, and I have some deeper diving to do with my inner mystic and even more time with the Tao/Dao.
Would love the same with The Art of War 💫
So adore this exchange, Diana. Wishing you and yours a lovely fall 🦋
Me too. We're sharing open doors . . .Thanks for so many links and names to follow.
Cheers to open doors 🦋🙏🦋
Felt this one in my bones
This essay resonated so much with me. Beautifully written and such a mirror of the culture I grew up in. Thank you for this.
Thank you so much for reading. I'm honored that my work resonated with you.