Bodies are so fucking weird.
You know (click here →) the Barbapapas? Human bodies ARE the Barbapapas. If you have parents, look at them. That’s basically you if you live like your parents. Maybe you take after an Aunt or Uncle? I don’t know. (But I do know that people who take after their Grandparents are generally hot. It’s a recessive hot-gene thing. That’s science.)
Back to the Barbapapas. Over the past forty-five years I’ve watched my body generate and eat cellulite.
Every April Fool’s Day I’ll wonder, “Will there be cellulite this summer?” And examine my post holiday, winter legs.
Every winter I get a sag in my left eye.
Rolls, moles and freckles grow and morph and pains edge and vanish and new pains arrive.
I’ve seen myself at this height between the weights of ninety pounds and one-hundred and sixty-seven pounds. My body is a Barbapapa.
When I’m sad, I’m smushy. When I’m angry, I’m sinewy. When I’m happy, I’m healthy.
It’s fucked. The body responds to trauma, the body responds to injury, happiness, love... Making changes to enrich life in happier ways sets the path to doing more and more for oneself. Then, maybe a person won’t even check calves on April Fool’s Day, or care if they look like a melted candle.
Go love your fucking body. It’s all of you. No matter where you’re at with it today, you goddamn Barbapapa.
A Melted Candle