HOW DO YOU OWN YOUR BODY:
BODIES
HOW DO YOU OWN YOUR BODY? WHAT EMPOWERS YOU? ELOISE SHARES HER TRANSFORMATION FROM ALIENATING THE VERY TEMPLE SHE LIVES IN TO LOVING THE YOUNG WOMAN SHE NOW IS AND THE HEALING THAT COMES FROM THAT SELF-LOVE
by ELOISE DUNWELL
I'm gonna be rounder than my mumma and that's okay.
She used to walk around naked. Pretty tall but her boobies were definitely low, beautiful bobbing things.
As I grew through the stress of my degree – and I found what I thought were "alien burrowing creatures" in my hips (they were stretch marks), I became angry. I felt bad. I felt like a failure – like age had finally kicked in. (At 23). Tonight (I'm 25) I prounce around in my nothingness – but I love my feel. I love my tummy curving WIDE over my hips. The way the fat rolls up and up and up stacking like soft bread rolls with sugar on top ready to nom up.
I love that my nipples pointed south. I was FULLUP! I had a mumma body – a Kali mother creator destroyer body that hit the earth solidly every time I took a step.
My mumma walked naked but my body isn't like hers. I had tried to make my breasts smaller, perter. My body wasn't like hers - it was bigger.
My hope stood higher, my breasts lolled wider, my hips stood BIGGER. My tummy distended with booze and smokes and ham.
A goddess body. A Mayan body. A healthy body. A loved body. A body whose breasts began to graze the table at dinner as much as her hands did. A body that can only now just fit in an aeroplane seat. And just make it up the stairs.
I'll love my body for every time that I've hated it - and more. BECAUSE it deserves it. Because your body carries you. Because your very cells wear the wisdom of the universe. And every woman who lived and breathed and died before you. So don't try to make it smaller - make it bigger! Full of stories and love and hopefulness. Full of the essence of existence - of the future before us. The very seed, the very earth of life is held in our tummies, our healing arms and our heaving hearts. Goddammit! Don't try to make them smaller. We need to be big so we can be strong.
I'm gonna be bigger than my mumma. And my daughter after me.