THE STATE OF THE BODY

Right now, the ads in my Instagram feed are either for needle work kits or curing plantar fasciatus. Occasionally the algorithm throws in an ad for somatic yoga for women over fifty because the internet thinks I’m eighty. I’m cool with that. I’ve stopped getting the ads for magic elixirs that cure perimenopause, though that may change after today’s post. I stopped taking the progesterone/DHEA stuff that I had ordered from the internet about a month and a half ago. It was time to renew my three-month supply and I put a big pause on that order for some reasons. The biggest reason was because of cost and I could not get my insurance to cover any of it. So I figured I would pause treatment, make notes on how I was feeling, and then take all of this to my doctor.

And I did that today.

I am going to start by saying that I really like my gynecologist. She is the same age as I am and doesn’t think I’m crazy. She walked into the room with a smile and a “Welcome to Perimenopause!” because the nurse had already given her a briefing on my erratic periods and my weight gain. To be fair, I did step onto the scale with my keys and wallet in my pockets, plus my Nikes. I’d like to think that added about five pounds to the number, but really I have no idea. The only time I step on a scale is at the doctors office because if I start doing this at home, I start obsessing and stressing out about numbers which leads me down a very unhealthy rabbit hole. My doctor only barely mentioned the weight and I said that I think I’ve reached a place where I’m okay with it and this is just my body. She nodded her head in agreement and said “Yes! I completely agree with you!” Then she told me that her favorite lubricant is olive oil and we swapped friendship bracelets. We didn’t really swap friendship bracelets, but olive oil is her favorite lube choice second to coconut oil.

I explained to my doctor how I felt taking the online stuff and how I was feeling now that I’m not, which isn’t great. I’m back to not sleeping for more than two hours at a time and my body has gone back to barrel shaped. My right foot hurts all the dang time, but I’m still doing all of the things. 10,000 or more steps a day. Yoga. I’ve added weights to my yoga practice. Standing all day at my desk. I’ve swapped out my tofu scramble with plain greek yogurt to get more protein. I told her that I basically have one of two stages: rage or sobbing. I’m either going to punch someone in the throat or melt into tears. Then she said “I’m here to support you and let’s talk about ways to do that.” So of course, I burst into tears. We talked about options in relation to the current state of my ovaries, which are still doing something even if they’re only spitting out low quality eggs. Then she prescribed a very low dose birth control pill with instructions to give this a good three month try. The idea is that this will even out and regulate things.

We’ll see.

It is turning out that three truly is the magic number. I was on the other stuff for three months. Now I am to give the new stuff a three month chance. At least this treatment is fully covered by my insurance and familiar. I took a birth control pill every day for twenty five year. I am excellent at remembering to take this pill. I have hopes that this will work but not high hopes. Just like my weight, I think I’ve finally started to come to terms with this is just how my body is right now. I make sure to not walk around carrying knives and always have a package of Kleenex in my pocket, which is probably just a good habit for any stage of life. Sort of like Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and always carrying a towel. Except a woman would most likely never hitchhike because bears don’t drive cars or if they do, don’t pick up hitchhikers.

This is more of The Transportationally Responsible’s Guide to Perimenopause.

PRIMA DONA

Prima dona

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The only bit of exercise that I have managed to be consistent with during this time of isolation has been yoga. My yoga practice has morphed into a beast of a practice. My teacher training is in Samatva yoga. Samatva is sanskrit for balance and the idea is that your yoga practice should be a balance to your daily life. Ooh boy have I ever taken this to heart. My daily life has become one of sitting at my desk in front of a computer all day. As a result, my yoga practice is all moving parts with many many rounds of sun salutations. I incorporate some mindful, isolated movements to transition between poses. My favorite sequence is one that has me flowing from a standing split to a squatting balance pose that looks like a Russian dance move. From there I move to my sit bones and roll down to my back. Then I roll up back into the Russian dance move and then back up into standing splits. I high-five myself every time I manage to do this sequence with smooth transitions.

With the exception of an occasional dog walk, I have not been doing any kind of cardio type exercises. I used to spend thirty minutes on an elliptical machine or a treadmill at least three times a week. Twice a week I attended a class that incorporated cardio with strength training. Every day I would walk the whole building and the outside before getting my first cup of coffee. I got at least 10,000 steps in a day and always took the stairs. Now, the only time I’m taking stairs is to the basement to do laundry. I kind of let the whole idea of doing a cardio exercise slide while we were building our retaining wall. Digging and hauling dirt is a cardio strength class all on it’s own, but the wall is done and I’m still sitting on my ass most of a day. The dog walks have become inconsistent due to weather and meetings and I have even stopped pacing around the house. I have to do something before my heart seizes in my chest.

Since advertisers now have the ability to read your mind, I kept seeing an ad for a streaming fitness channel that offers an Xtend Barre class (as well as ads for onesies because they know I have a thing for them). Every day I would see this perky blond woman, cheerfully doing ballet inspired exercises and it completely sucked me in. It doesn’t really require equipment and I don’t have to wear shoes. There’s a cardio aspect and most of the classes are thirty minutes. Plus, I can pretend to be a ballerina. One thing I noticed was that this class doesn’t require a large space. I can probably do these exercises in my cubicle. This is important because when I go back to work, things are going to be a lot different. The gym will probably stay closed and I will be restricted to my floor. No moving between floors or running up and down stairs. I can still walk outside but again, this is limited by weather. I had been considering signing up for Disney+, but decided that my $8 a month would be better spent on a channel that encourages me to adapt to the changing landscape. There are fitness classes other than Barre that Michael can do or would be willing to do, so we can all benefit here.

So, every morning for the last two weeks, I get up and do thirty minutes of Xtend Barre, a mix of ballet with light weights. I do not have a chair that is tall enough to be my barre. Instead I use the heavy tamper we purchased for the wall construction. If I need to prop my foot up on a barre, I use the TV credenza. The women on the screen are all using one or two pound weights. All I have are five and ten pounders. I use the fives until my arms feel like their going to burst into flames and then I set the weights aside and just move my arms around. Sometimes in the middle of my hundredth pleat, I start to have flashbacks to my days in dance class. I am no more gracefully suited to the ballet barre today than I was at age three, but I persist. I do feel like my thighs and arms are getting stronger and if I use the wide angle lens when I take a selfie, my legs look really slim. The other thing that I really like about this class is the diversity of women taking the class in each video. There are all shapes, sizes, colors, and fitness levels represented, which is so not often the case in workout videos or gyms or yoga studios. This diversity creates a more welcoming environment and makes it easier to show up to class.

I may not be the Prima Dona on the stage, but I think I could probably bench press the Prima Dona. And I did go ahead and sign us up for Disney+.

#IBELIEVEHER

Weaver

4 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Weaver"

It must be a shock to you, after all this time, that we are finally standing up and fighting back. You’ve spent so much of your life believing that you had the advantage, that you could do whatever you wanted, when you wanted with out consequences. You’ve spent much of your life believing that our bodies where meant for you to use. I mean, why shouldn’t you believe that? Our bodies are on display in advertisements plastered across all media formats. Business models are specifically designed to lure you into their stores with the promise of a beautiful scantily clad women for you to abuse. There are no laws that govern your body.

Except now we are no longer willing to silently put up with your “boys will be boys” mentality. We are no longer willing to let you just go on without being held accountable for your actions. We are no longer willing to let you bully us. When one of our tribe steps up and points a finger at the man who assaulted her, no matter how old the crime may be, we believe her. We believe her and stand behind her because it could just as easily be any of us speaking up. We stand behind her and support her because we know how scary speaking up is. We know her fear. We know the shame she feels. We know the hurt she feels. We are a collective, brought together by similar experiences, afraid to speak up. Afraid that no one will believe us. We’ve been told our whole lives that women are liars, temptresses, sirens. We’ve been told that we were asking for it. We’ve been told to keep it a secret. No. We’ve been threatened to keep it a secret. And then you sit there arms crossed and ask “why didn’t you say so sooner?” after you threaten a girl with her life if she says a word.

What was the tipping point? I don’t know. Maybe it was your unfailing devotion to a man who openly, without qualms, gleefully humiliates women and your insistence on making such a man leader of this country. Really though, it has been brewing and festering for years before that. It is one thing for us to declare that we will no longer allow you to govern our bodies. It is quite another to take action to legally keep you from governing our bodies. Which is what you have done to us for years. The statue of limitations does not run out on your crimes against women and you are no less guilty of those crimes just because she didn’t speak up. You are no longer allowed to bully us. You are no longer allowed to just get away with it.

I get it though, change is hard. It’s not easy giving up a way of life you known for far too long. It’s not easy giving up your roll as bully or always getting your way. But if you’re not going to change, then be prepared for the consequences.

It’s your turn to feel threatened.

ME TOO

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * Oct 16, 2017 at 1:51pm UTC

4 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram

There was a man at my church, who whenever he saw me would want to pick me up and carry me around. He'd ask me to kiss his cheek. I was maybe five or six. I remember being small and feeling his large hand tight around my upper thigh, just under the skirt of my church dress. The first time he did this, it made me laugh. Every little kid wants to be picked up and carried around. I was just at that age were I was too big to be carried around by my Dad. So being picked up was a treat. But then this man did this every time he saw me, picking me up and squeezing me tight. He was always begging for kisses even though I pushed away. I didn't want to be picked up. I didn't want to feel his hands on my body. I didn't want to kiss his cheek. But I played along because I didn't want to hurt his feelings and when I couldn't take another encounter with him, I started hiding, ducking behind a bookshelf or into a stairwell. 

I thought for a long time that this is just the way things are. A woman's body is never just her own. In everything I had seen on TV, covers of magazines and the romance novels that piled up next to my mother's bedside table, a woman was always being manhandled. We were told this was normal and that this is what we should want. We should want a man to touch our bodies. We should be flattered by it. We should even use it to our advantage. As a young girl and teen, those moments when a boy tried to touch me were so rare, that when it did happen, I almost felt grateful. I had zero confidence in my body or how I looked and those rare encounters made me believe for a moment that maybe I was attractive. Maybe I wasn't just a chubby pimply faced awkward girl. We were taught that our self worth was measured by how much a man wanted to touch your body, even if his touch makes you feel like throwing up. 

It wasn't until college when I found my voice. I'd hang out with my roommate in the guys dorms. She had a thing for one of the basketball players and we'd sit in his room while they smoked pot and listened to R Kelly. One of the other basketball players was always trying 'get with me'. Those where his words. He was never forceful, just persistent. His persistence made me feel uncomfortable, like there was something wrong with me for not wanting to be with this guy, for not wanting him to touch me. Maybe I was 'frigid'. I had yet to lose my virginity. Was it because I wouldn't just give in, even when I felt nothing for this guy other than annoyance? It seemed like punishment for having standards, for wanting a partner who was my equal. Punishment for wanting a partner who treated my body less like an object and more like a temple. One day, for no reason other than I had finally had enough, I told that guy "NO". I told him that his advances made me feel uncomfortable. It made me not want to be around him. So I wasn't. I walked away and stayed away. 

Then there was Chris, who was that equal partner. He treated my inexperience carefully and gently. He did not persist. He let me make my first skittish moves. He let my body be my own. This in itself made me feel more attractive than any of those previous encounters. Chris was a protective barrier to a point, but Chris's presence didn't stop other men from the occasional touch. There's always that guy who thinks it's just fine to pat you on the ass. After Chris, when I was alone, I found myself in more and more situations where a guy would find excuses to touch me. I would recoil, step back, jump away. Even though there were times I craved human touch, I did not welcome this encroachment on my personal space. I did not encourage it. I was never asking for it. A couple of years ago, I went to get a massage. It was at a spa I'd been to before, with a massage therapist I had been with once before. Near the end he asked me if he could massage my chest. I was just recovering from a chest cold and the muscles in the upper part of my chest were tight. I consented thinking that the massage therapist was going to work on that area, which he did. Then his hands were on my breasts. I remember thinking even then 'this is okay, there's muscles there too that need to be released', reassuring myself. Then his hands moved to my nipples and alarm bells rang in my head. This was not okay. But I laid there and let it happen, too ashamed to say a word. 

So many people wonder why it has taken so long for all of these women to come forward with their confessions of sexual harassment. Those people must be fortunate enough to never have experienced the shame and humiliation that comes from being sexually harassed. I have never told the story about the massage therapist to any one, until today. At the time it was happening, I was too shocked to believe it was really happening. Then, I was ashamed of myself and embarrassed. I had given him permission to massage my chest and when he crossed a line, I did nothing to stop it. I had asked for it, right? Except it does not make his actions right. What about that man from church? I never told him "no". I never asked him verbally to stop. I was six. Just because I didn't say no, does not make his actions right either. Admitting that you were vulnerable and trusted another human to not take advantage of your vulnerability is not an easy thing to do. 

It takes a lot of courage. 

Every woman who steps forward, even if it has been years since the incident, gives another woman courage to speak. It sends the message to every man that we will not stay silent and we will not let you behave this way. Fathers who thought this could never happen to their daughters or brothers who believed they could protect their little sisters from predators, are now aware that, yes this can happen. Because I am positive that there are fathers out there who truly believe that this is not going to happen to his little girl. My own brother is probably going to be completely surprised by my own stories of sexual harassment. For far too long we've let society put the blame on the victim and it has silenced us. It stops now. I'd like to believe that the Cabbage is never going to have to tell a story about being sexually harassed. Though, I am not that naive. I don't want her to feel ashamed. I don't want her to be scared to speak up, to scream "NO!". I want her to know that she owns her own body, and nobody else does. 

That's why I am telling my story.