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I pick up trash out of gratitude. Gratitude that the clinic is there, so close to my home and affordable, even in the days when I was too ill to work. Gratitude that I am healing from this perplexing digestive illness. Gratitude that I am here, stable at my healthy weight now for over four months, and that the anemia-induced ‘grayouts’ as I named them – because they were frightening, near-blackouts – are a thing of the past. I pick up trash because even if it is not directly a deed in return to the acupuncture clinic, it pays respect to being rescued and guided.
The Zipper In The Back Philosophy.
Last year, around the time that I lost the excess weight, partially through battling with my condition and being unable to eat properly, and later due to a healthy diet that was now a necessity, I became reacquainted with the clothes at the back of my closet. A great selection of classics, sizes ranging from 8–12. These sizes are from an era when 6 was really skinny to me, and size 0 was not “a thing.” I think that size designations got a weird makeover in the last 30 years. Like when the Peruvian currency had to drop a couple zeros, six in fact, due to hyperinflation in the 80’s. And… voilà, you are not a ‘millionaire’ anymore, but you get to carry a wallet instead of a suitcase for your cash. I need to pull out a measuring tape and some Chemin de Fers someday to prove my sizing conspiracy theory right.
But this was not about numbers; it was about reclaiming my self. After illness, and then finding health through acupuncture and balance, I had come back down to my 'happy' clothing size. This doesn't sound very spiritual or deep perhaps, but there was a beautiful renewal of my soul in taking back what was mine all along - a tangible nexus with the self I was before tragedy muted our family's spirit.
I brought out my dresses, carefully laundered them, and hung them in order. I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to being overweight so wearing dresses was not in my worldview 50lbs ago, and for the last +/-9 years. And happily wearing dresses last summer and no longer having the friendly-named but sad-in-reality “muffin top” to disguise all the time, I became increasingly amused by the process of contortions that us women go through to zip up.
Sure, we can do it by ourselves. The female acrobatic yoga ensues: first, pull the zipper from the starting point at your lower back as far up as you can get it, usually to around the middle of the shoulder blades for me, then switch your reach over your shoulder and pull the rest of the way. It’s not so hard. But I started asking my husband Jimmy to zip me up, when he happened to be around. I never realized how friendly of an interaction this is. It is friendly to ask for help.
This was not about gender, or being helpless, or about some great relinquishing of feminism. I can ask my power women for help in any situation. And in the same way, I can ask Jimmy, because he is my best friend and also because he is there. It is a fragile balance that we tread as women. We have not been fully free for millennia, trying to assert ourselves amid gender oppression, and now sometimes we are not free because we want to preserve the independence and identity that was so hard to obtain. I want to be free to ask for help. I want to be free to accept assistance from a man, from anyone.
And in 2005, when I needed it the most, Jimmy was there. I told him, “I don’t need you to fix me. I just need you to sit next to me and scream out into the void, ‘This that happened really as hell @✴#!$%^ sucks!’” Because at that moment, I was not be able to do so, and knowing that you could was the best comfort on earth.
There is courage in being able to ask for help when you really need it, whether it is with a zipper, or a door, or an insurmountable loss.
Today, these little dresses remind me to be happy, stay connected, and feel.
Feel grateful, accept love and care, and keep moving on.