| Keresha Story's | Disordered Eating | Santa Cruz |
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When my body began to change Hips widening Breasts and belly rounding Thighs and bottom curving, The women did not gather To adorn my figure or praise me To prepare me for my flowering adult form So I tried to ignore my body and stopped eating Fasting for days down to the weight that the teen fashion magazine told me everyone my height should be. Gaining all the pounds back when I began to eat again, feeling I was a failure I hated my new female shape My Mother tried to cheer me up saying "It's just baby fat, dear" I painfully denied that I was becoming a woman Even as I continually bruised my new hip bones, thinking I was thinner and swiping my side on doorways. Running away from my Mother when she brought home a training bra to cover my nipples budding up out of my t-shirt Like a wild horse I refused to be reigned into Western Womanhood symbolically being bond with a brassiere And at 12 years old when the royal red stream of my Moon began to run The women did not gather To sing and dance or celebrate To welcome me into their community Instead I bled through my pants all afternoon, swinging on the bars trying to hide my new womanhood from my best girlfriends Later my sister would coach me through the bathroom door "I know it feels like a broom handle..." pondering for a moment the toxic shock warning as I plugged up a chlorine-bleached tampon and tried to forget about "the curse". 25 years later and I am still trying to value my Womb-inly figure Learning to love and accept my roundness as I wax and wane with the Moon and feed my Self well It helps to not watch TV or mainstream movies, to not focus on negative portrayals of women refuse to $upport "women's" fashion magazines that feed the multi-billion dollar diet industry, and always make me feel like something is wrong with me and my body We women must create our own ceremony To celebrate our body the way it is Put clay figures of our body type on a home altar and worship ourselves as the Great Goddess that we are After centuries of oppressive patriarchy that critiques and weakens women We must reclaim the high status of Womanhood By honoring and nourishing our bodies Have images of round healthy women surrounding us Recall the ancient body memory that values *real* womanhood, women's voices That values "women's" work, women's ideas That values time with women and finds strength in Sisterhood in all our blessed shapes and forms I take walks in Mother Nature She replenishes my spirit and the forest reminds me every size and shape is an important part every size and shape is divine. |
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