Hymns of a Fat Woman

My sister lost about 40 pounds last year. She did it the old fashioned way, by eating healthy foods and exercising. She joined a gym and did aerobic exercise and strength training while eating less. She's a size 4 now, bless her heart. She goes with my nieces to the Karaoke Bar at the bowling alley. Men half her age hit on her at the gym. She will probably live forever.

Like many a reformed sinner, she now wants to save the rest of us who are mired in gluttony and sloth. She is trying to market herself as a "lifestyle coach". She will help you find a healthy diet and start an exercise program. She will help you join a gym and a hire personal trainer, if that's what you need. She will go through your pantry with you and toss out fattening foods. She will grocery shop beside you and help you read food labels and figure portion sizes. I think she's really on to something here. A lot of people need encouragement to be healthy, and most people don't get that encouragement from their environment.

I haven't signed up for her services, however. The following two poems are more my style.



The Hymn of a Fat Woman

Joyce Huff


All of the saints starved themselves.
Not a single fat one.
The words “deity” and “diet” must have come from the same
Latin root.

Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones
or shards of stained
glass or Christ carved
on his cross.

Hard
as pew seats. Brittle
as hair shirts. Women
made from bone, like the ribs that protrude from his wasted
wooden chest. Women consumed
by fervor.

They must have been able to walk three or four abreast
down that straight and oh-so-narrow path.
They must have slipped with ease through the eye
of the needle, leaving the weighty
camels stranded at the city gate.

Within that spare city’s walls,
I do not think I would find anyone like me.

I imagine I will find my kind outside
lolling in the garden
munching on the apples.


Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale

Jane Yolen

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Cinder Elephant,
Sleeping Tubby,
Snow Weight,
where the princess is not
anorexic, wasp-waisted,
flinging herself down the stairs.

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Hansel and Great,
Repoundsel,
Bounty and the Beast,
where the beauty
has a pillowed breast,
and fingers plump as sausage.

I am thinking of a fairy tale
that is not yet written,
for a teller not yet born,
for a listener not yet conceived,
for a world not yet won,
where everything round is good:
the sun, wheels, cookies, and the princess.

I found these two poems, and many other wonderful bits of poetry at the Library or Congress web site page, 180 Poems: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/

Birds

My radio alarm goes off every week day morning at 6:30 a.m. I usually lie in bed for another half hour, listening to National Public Radio tell me the news, weather and traffic. They have such soothing voices on NPR, even the worst news or the most snarled traffic doesn't sound too threatening.

I keep the radio turned low; I can also hear the birds in the yard, excited about the food in the bird feeder.

This past week, every morning at 6:50, Garrison Keillor was on the radio for a brief monologue he calls The Writer's Almanac. He talks about a writer or two, usually on the writer's birthday. Then he reads a favorite poem.

I just love it. What a great way to start the day - soft voices, bird song and poetry.

Check out the associated web site: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/02/05/#thursday


I heard him read the following on Thursday as I lay in bed listening to the birds in my yard:



Why I Need the Birds


When I hear them call
in the morning, before
I am quite awake,
my bed is already traveling
the daily rainbow,
the arc toward evening;
and the birds, leading
their own discreet lives
of hunger and watchfulness,
are with me all the way,
always a little ahead of me
in the long-practiced manner
of unobtrusive guides.


By the time I arrive at evening,
they have just settled down to rest;
already invisible, they are turning
into the dreamwork of trees;
and all of us together —
myself and the purple finches,
the rusty blackbirds,
the ruby cardinals,
and the white-throated sparrows
with their liquid voices —
ride the dark curve of the earth
toward daylight, which they announce
from their high lookouts
before dawn has quite broken for me.


by Lisel Mueller

The Year of Not Shopping

Some time ago I read about a man who gave up buying things for a year. He bought food, of course, and necessary medicines, and gifts for other people, but nothing else. Then last fall I read about a group of friends in California (where else?) who signed a compact to not buy anything new for a year. They allowed themselves to buy services such as haircuts and going out to eat, but no new things, only used or recycled things. They bought used gifts for people, even re-cycled brake pads for their car. The whole idea intrigued me and I decided to give it a try.

For 2007 I am not shopping for new things: no clothes, shoes, dishes, towels, books or furniture. I am not buying anything that will add to the burden of possessions I already own. I am spending money on food, medicine, gifts (even new items for gifts), and lattes. I am paying to have my hair done. And, as I pointed out to my husband, I have no prohibition against other people buying things for me.

So how is it going? Well, I did pretty well in January. I bought a new battery for my car because it needed one and I need my car to get to work, and I'm not sure I could have found a re-cycled battery. Then I bought new eye glasses, but only because my old ones broke and couldn't be fixed, and anyhow my vision insurance paid for most of them.

Norah Jones released a new album. I probably wouldn't have noticed, but both my kids pointed it out to me because they know I really liked her previous albums. But I wouldn't buy it. My son offered to get it for me for Mother's Day, which was really sweet of him, but then I remembered the itunes gift card my daughter got me for Christmas, so I ordered the album from itunes. I figured that wasn't really buying it because the gift card had already been paid for.

I went to Best Buy today and bought my son a birthday gift. That was a challenge. Any number of items caught my eye, but I didn't buy anything else. Then I went to the Barnes and Noble book store next to Best Buy, and that was really a challenge. So many interesting books! I almost bought one as a gift for David, but I put it back. He hadn't asked for it, and I really just wanted to give it to him and then borrow it back to read myself. I have unread books at home, so I was strong.

I've started a list of things I might want to buy in 2008. The funny thing is, I've already forgotten about most of the items I've put on the list.

My husband is quite amused by all this. He says he will shop twice as hard to make sure the economy doesn't suffer.

I plan to continue one month at a time. I will be saving money, time and energy. I will be enjoying the possessions I already own. I'll keep you posted.

I don't really have a poem about not shopping, but this poem amuses me, so I'm sharing it:

From “The Walrus and the Carpenter”

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.’

Lewis Carroll