Culture
This Is Who I Am
by Lorraine, , May 29, 2008
THIS IS WHO I AM: OUR BEAUTY IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES by Rosanne Olson
2008: Artisan (Workman)
I admit it: even at 45, I look in a mirror and see flaws. The ten pounds I put on this long winter try to remind me that I’m a sloth, unworthy of love, incapable of being sexy.
Luckily for me, I’ve worked long and hard enough at this crap to know that that’s what it is: bullshit. Crap that I’ve swallowed my entire life in a culture that is obsessed with keeping women tiny and taut, hungry and silent. Somehow, despite the imperfections of my body, I have never felt more sexy. I have embraced the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which tells me that things are beautiful because of their imperfections, not in spite of them.
So, it was a genuine joy to pick up a copy of This Is Who I Am. Inside its covers are the glorious black-and-white photos of 54 ordinary women of all ages, races, shapes, and sizes. And each and every one of them is gorgeous.
There’s LaRae, 25, and 250 pounds, who says:
I don’t like the fact that I gain so much weight, but it doesn’t affect my day-to-day life. I’d like to lose weight., but I just can’t imagine not having my butt or breasts. It klls me when smaller women say, “Oh, I’m so fat,” and they’re like size 4. When I tell them they look good and they start grabbing at their skin, it makes me sad—here I am, 250 pounds, and I love myself this way. When I was a child, my mother told me I was beautiful—and I believed her. I still do. I think I’m beautiful. Maybe I can also inspire women everywhere to love themselves, no matter their size, naked or clothed.
Or Alice, 95, who writes:
At my age, pain frustrates me. The curvature of the spine appeared at midlife; that it cannot be reversed is a disappointment. But I’m too busy to dwell on problems. This is the body I was given, and it has served me well. I never thought about loving it, but I have accepted it.
I have already decided that each and every woman I love will receive this book as a gift this year. Too many of us hate the very vessel that allows us to move freely throughout the world, to assert our presence, to take up the space we deserve. This Is Who I Am reminds us that we are allowed that. It is our right.
Lorraine Berry is the Project Director for NeoVox.
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