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Dear Face,

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Let’s talk about your rosacea.

I’ve been thinking of writing to you for a while about this, but I’ve put it off. Then yesterday, an acquaintance’s Instagram post about her own rosacea got me thinking more about your struggles.

I remember the shame I felt the first time I realized that strenuous exercise would turn you redder than hot lava. I was almost fourteen, and I was trying out for the high school cheer squad (team?). In addition to Lungs sucking wind because they weren’t used to so much intense aerobic activity, you flushed a deep purply red.

I castigated myself as an overweight, uncool loser with no business cheering if you were going to signal my distress to the world with such a loud broadcast. When I didn’t make the team (squad?), I made it your fault rather than my lack of skill.

But as time progressed and you flushed red at every athletic endeavor, I realized this was just your thing. Once, during my short running career, a little girl in the neighborhood stopped biking to ask if I was okay because you were so red. Remember that? She must have thought Heart was in danger of exploding. I was embarrassed but not as ashamed as I’d been back in that high school gym.

Now, as more years have progressed, you are tinted some variation of pinky red most of the time. It’s been eons since I’ve worn blush because you don’t need any help adding “color” to Cheeks. Summertime is nice because I can attribute your color to kissing the sun. Although it aggravates me to no end when someone assumes I’m sunburnt. Do I explain? Do I leave them to their assumption? Do I care? Why do I care?

Heat and alcohol are triggers for your rosacea, as is exercise still. Wearing a mask really revs up the redness. Makeup is great to tone down the scarlet show, but it also seems to aggravate you.

You’re flaming as I write this, your heat warming Hand when she touched you.

Perhaps, you’re thinking about the debacle that medication was. When I finally decided that I had lived with the redness long enough and asked the dermatologist for help, she confirmed your rosacea diagnosis and prescribed medication. The first medication was expensive and had little effect. The second medication was more expensive and caused you to break out in a rash that traveled down to Neck. The third medication prescribed cost hundreds of dollars. I didn’t even fill that prescription.

I decided that your redness is a part of who you are, as much as Freckles are. I don’t love that you’re red, but I accept it. I know that a consistent skin care routine with gentle, organic products makes you feel best and does a darn good job of controlling the worst of rosacea’s symptoms of breakouts and dryness. I’m committed to your care, and I’ve got plenty of compassion for you.

On that same IG post, another acquaintance shared additional ideas we can try to soothe you. I’m most excited about moon bathing. You too? Let’s make a date under the next full moon.

Nicole C. Ayers

Artwork by Mica Gadhia

I Am My Body

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A photo of a white woman from the neck down. She's wearing a pink dress, her arms are behind her back, and her ankles are crossed. The lighting is dark.

Every time I see one of these phrases, most often in memes, I cringe.

The offenders:

You are not your body.

Your body is just the keeper of your magic.

Eating Disorder Recovery

Before I write more, I want to acknowledge that phrases like this can be incredibly helpful for people recovering from eating disorders.

If this is you, keep using them! Keep showing up for yourself. Keep healing.

If these phrases help you stay well, please stop reading and have a lovely day.

***

Why “You Are Not Your Body” Makes Me Cringe

The phrase “you are not your body” is meant to remind us that our worth and value have nothing to do with our physical bodies. So true. We are inherently worthy.

But this phrase makes me cringe because I actually am my body. And my body is me.

Pretending otherwise reminds me of all the years I spent dissociating from my body, living from the neck up, pretending like my body didn’t exist whenever I could avoid it.

I lost touch with my body’s innate wisdom. Rather than look inward for answers, I often crowdsourced what I should do. And I ignored any signals my body sent to get my attention and tell me that sometimes those plans were the exact opposite of what I needed.

After spending so much energy to reclaim my connection with my body, I don’t ever want to make her feel like an unwelcome part of me.

She is the miraculous machine allowing me to experience life. She’s my home. She’s my lifelong companion, the one who will be with me until our very last moment.

Reframing “Your Body Is Just the Keeper of Your Magic”

My body is the keeper of my magic, but there’s no room for “just” in this sentence. “Just” implies her role is somehow diminished in comparison to my magic. But how sacred a vessel is my body to be the container that can hold my magic, my magic being all the wonderful effervescence and creativity and ingenuity and more that is an essential part of my makeup.

As my magic’s keeper, she is loyal and steadfast and trustworthy. I can show up as my full self, and she never says, “Tone it down, dear. You’re too much.”

She offers me a safe space to expand into my full potential, always assuring me that she’s on my side.

My body is the kind keeper, the courageous caretaker, the magnificent magician wielding my magic.

What About “You Are More Than Your Body”?

Am I more than my body? Of course, I am. I’m a complex creation.

But my body is an integral source of my complexity. Without her, I’d be a spirit who couldn’t fully experience all that this human life has to offer.

Her physical manifestation of “me” allows me to connect with nature, to inhale all that my senses encounter, to hold close the ones I love. She gives voice to my soul’s messages and embodies all the unique bits that make me who I am.

Because of my body, I get to be a human being.

My Body

No pithy phrase or meme will ever be able to fully describe my relationship with my body.

Our connection is a nuanced mosaic that continues to evolve. And now that I’ve rediscovered how powerful our relationship is, I want to celebrate my body as an integral part of my existence.

Photo Credit: Cass Bradley, Find My Fearless

Dear Forearms,

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a painting of a dark-skinned woman's arm. She wears a red bracelet on her wrist. The background is yellow.
Art by Mica Gadhia

How are you? Last I checked, you were still a little tender to the touch, but the bruises were fading. Isn’t it amazing how you heal? Is there anything more you need?

I’ve been thinking so much about pain and healing since our massage last Thursday. About how I make repetitive choices that create tension and tightness in you that I ignore until I can’t. About how I am so familiar with your tightness that I don’t even realize how constricted you are. About  how I overlook you when I’m stretching.

And mostly, I’ve been contemplating how the fastest way to release your tension was to sit with some intense discomfort as the massage therapist used a special tool to break up all the knots in your fascia. The sensation created a synesthetic crackling that reverberated in my body. And of course, it’s left you tender and bruised. And also looser. And healing.

I can’t help but compare this experience to what happens when I come against an old wound that’s ready for healing balm. The emotional pain rises sharp and swift. It hurts in its intensity, and I question why I agreed to this. But I sit with it. Teeth gritted. Body tensed. Tears flowing until I surrender. And I breathe. And breathe again. And breathe once more.

As I hold on for another breath, the pain lessens until eventually it’s transformed. I’m tender and bruised. But also lighter.

Healing sometimes comes with pain, but it’s a different kind of pain than what I’ve been holding onto. And it’s worth sitting in the acute discomfort for a while in order to find myself in a new space with a little more clarity about what I need going forward.

And for sure, there are moments of divine grace that bring healing with complete ease. I celebrate those gifts. But however the healing happens, I’m grateful for its miraculousness to create change.

Nicole C. Ayers

Sitting Pretty Review

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orange book cover of Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig. Rebekah sits in her wheelchair, wearing a yellow shirt and black shorts.

I began following Rebekah on Instagram about a year ago, and I was immediately captivated with her turns of phrase. She’s a natural storyteller. When I found out she had a book coming out, I put it high on my wish list. Sitting Pretty did not disappoint.

I felt an immediate connection with Rebekah. I call her Rebekah as if we’re buddies. We’re not. But I feel like we easily could be. We’re about the same age, and memories she shared of growing up often sparked similar memories for me, such as playing house and imagining fantasy romances after watching soap operas.

She writes about living as a disabled woman in a world that often doesn’t consider her needs at all. I appreciated her honesty and her encouragement that we look at even the most uncomfortable aspects of disability, such as the complications of kindness and the way that the cost of healthcare forces people to make hard decisions.

What I most appreciated, though, was her gentle yet insistent urging that we use our imaginations and bring people with diverse bodies to our conversations to improve everyone’s experiences. Rebekah shared her experience as a teacher and how exhausting and grueling the workload and expectations often are, which is amplified for her because her campus’s accessibility makes a task as simple as grabbing lunch an ordeal.

This resonated so deeply because I left teaching because the workload and expectations weren’t sustainable for me, and for so many others, as evidenced by the teacher shortage in many areas. But as Rebekah posits, what if we imagined teaching differently? Could it look different? Could it be kinder to our teachers’ physical, mental, and emotional needs? Could it grow into a more sustainable model that doesn’t burn people out? Of course it could. We just need to imagine it and then work to create it.

Read Sitting Pretty. It will make your ponder a more accessible world long after the you finish the last essay.

Two Book Reviews: What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk about Fat and One To Watch

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Book cover of What We Don't Talk about When We Talk about Fat by Aubrey Gordon, creator of Your Fat Friend. White words on red background.

Book cover of One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London. Blue background with drawing of a woman's back. The woman is wearing a pink dress and heels and is holding a diamond ring behind her back. She is surrounded by video cameras.

Over the holidays, I read two books, one nonfiction (What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk about Fat by Aubrey Gordon), one fiction (One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London), that described the experiences of women living in larger bodies. Reading these two books back-to-back amplified their messages of inclusivity and body positivity and showed with poignant clarity the problems with fat phobia.

What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk about Fat

In What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon, creator of Your Fat Friend, Gordon writes a series of essays about navigating the world in her body. Her essays are both personal and academic and very readable. She writes about her experiences flying, the assumptions society at large has about her desirability, her medical-care history, and much more.

I appreciated her candor and vulnerability, and I felt like I was attending a master class in how to honor other people’s experiences without being an asshole. The chapter “On Concern and Choice” was a powerful sermon about how much harm we cause when we tell people in larger bodies that we just want them to be “healthy,” a word so loaded in this context with condescenion and righteousness that it’s a weapon.

Gordon writes, “I did not come to body positivity for self-esteem. I came to it for social justice.” And her phenomenal work makes clear why we should all look at body positivity through this lens.

One to Watch

One to Watch, Kate Stayman-London’s debut novel, invites the reader into the fictional life of Bea Shumacher, a plus-size fashion blogger. Bea is charming and smart, and she upends her life when she agrees to be the star of a reality TV show similar to The Bachelorette. Bea knows this is a brilliant career move, and she hopes to inspire women who have never seen a woman with a body similar to theirs, in the role of the romantic heroine, on TV. She’s also committed to not falling in love. Her journey is tender and funny and heartbreaking, and I was engrossed from the first page.

Read Both

When I heard echoes of Aubrey Gordon in One to Watch, I was pleasantly surprised to find that author Kate Stayman-London thanked Aubrey Gordon for her fat activism in the acknowledgments. I highly recommend both books, and if you can read them in close proximity, I think it will deepen your appreciation for both.

A Note on the Word “Fat”

Some people, like Gordon, have chosen to reclaim “fat” as a body descriptor, as an adjective for their bodies, similar to tall, brunette, or thin. You may cheer this on and encourage their empowerment. But there are also lots of folks who have been brutalized by the word and will never choose to use it. For them, that is an empowering choice. As with so many things, this is personal and individual. Let’s honor everyone’s choices. And only use “fat” to describe a body if that body is your own and you’re comfortable with the descriptor, or the person you’re describing has invited you to do so.

Mica Gadhia’s Body Love Note

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I’m so grateful to Mica Gadhia for sharing a love note to her skin tag with me, and with all of you. Learning to accept our bodies, just as they are, is community work.

If you’d love the support of this women’s circle, please send me your love note. You can always share anonymously if you wish.

Mica Gadhia
Illustrator of Love Notes to My Body

Mica’s Conversation with her skin tag

“Well, hello.”

“Hi. I’m a skin tag.”

“Why are you right there on my thigh in that weird spot? There aren’t any other skin things around you. You’re like, right there, in the middle of nowhere.”

“It’s a great place to be.”

“Hunh. I’m not sure it’s a great place for you to be.”

Mica’s Musings

My first thought is about cutting the skin tag off. I saw a kit at the store that gets rid of skin tags, so maybe I’ll go that route.
In the same moment, I think about my role in producing a book about self-love for our bodies and all of its parts. Is it self-love to not want this skin tag here? Why do I not like it? Or do I not like it because the media has told me not to like it?

So I sit.

And I think and journal about the skin tag.

And because no immediate action is clear, I choose to do nothing.

We live in peace for many months.

Then, I go to the dermatologist for a full-body check-up, and I tell the doctor about my skin tag. And this person doesn’t care one way or another about the skin tag. I ask if it needs to come off and they say, “If you want.” 

And then I’m back at the same place where it is I who has to make a choice about a new part of my body.

I don’t feel like I’ve had agency over my body for much of my life, but right now, it’s me and my skin tag, and we’re doing just fine. If I decide one day to get it taken off, I will have a ceremony and thank it for being such a great teacher to me. For now, the skin tag stays so we can walk through life together . . . in love with each other. 

Mica’s Love Note 

Dear Skin Tag, 

Thank you for coming to me and being on my leg. You were unexpected, and I had difficult feelings about you in the beginning. I may have those feelings again someday. If I do, I will definitely work hard to love you and the emotions that I experience the entire time. 

Know this, Skin Tag, I love you and what you’ve done for me. I love that you’re here and being a part of my life. Thank you for joining me on my grand adventure of love and acceptance. You’re a small but powerful journey mate. 

Love, Me