times a day and stand in front of the mirror to see if my body looks more pleasing from one angle rather than another. And I worry constantly that I’ll lose this battle in the end.
Periodically, though, I believe that I can return to that skinny boy I once was, or that I imagine I once was. I starve myself and take up impossible diet regimes and buy into expensive weight loss programs. Echoing my family’s creed, I tell myself that it’s only a matter of self-discipline, which is a hallmark of a person’s moral character. I picture myself ten pounds lighter, maybe even twenty or thirty. I consider bulimia or anorexia as if they are choices a sane person would make, like choosing between wearing a blue suit or a grey one to work. I buy clothes one or two sizes too small and try them on, convincing myself that they will fit, and chastise myself when they don’t.
At the end of a month or two when I accept that I’m not a skinny boy, I fall into a deep depression that is fueled by my father’s warning that I should have heeded decades ago. I’m certain he was never warned what would happened to his body, the way it would betray him and weigh him down like a wet wool blanket he lugs around from place to place.
July 4th
My father hates the fourth of July. He refuses to go to any parties or picnics in the park or to watch fireworks displays. Instead, he stays inside and watches a bad movie on T.V.
I’ve inherited his dislikes and instead of staying in the apartment in the city and watching fireworks off the East River, I’ve retreated to our house in the country. I’ll spend the holiday tending the garden while our neighbors stalk the woods around the house randomly shooting at squirrels and chipmunks and mice and only occasionally at deer that I wish they’d be more successful at killing. The deer threaten the garden and even if I’m a reluctant gardener, I’m still jealous of my labor.
I used to think that my father’s aversion to the fourth was simply part of his curmudgeonly nature that disowns sentimental moments and displays of emotion. But I was wrong.