Nobody's Body But Mine

There was a strange song on one of the children's records I listened to as a kid. Strange in hindsight: growing up, I didn't find it weird in the least. Tucked in among all the tracks from early-80's kid-music rock stars like Rafi, Gemini, and Bert & Ernie, my music collection contained a little Peter Alsop ditty called "My Body." Six years old, every time the song was in the player, I would dance around freely, jumping and swiveling and calling out these lyrics:

"My Body"

CHORUS: My body's nobody's body but mine! You run your own body, let me run mine!

My nose was made to sniff and to sneeze/To smell what I want, and to blow when I please!/My lungs were made to hold air when I breathe,I am in charge of just how much I need! (CHORUS)

My legs were made to dance me around/To walk and to run and to jump up and down!/My mouth was made to blow-up a balloon/I can eat, kiss and spit, I can whistle a tune! (CHORUS)

No one knows my body better than me/It tells me, "Let's eat!", it tells me "Go pee!"/Don't hit me or kick me, don't push or shove/Don't hug me too hard when you show me your love (CHORUS)

Sometimes it's hard to say "No!" and be strong/When those "No!" feelings come, then I know something's wrong/'Cause My body's mine from my head to my toe/Please leave it alone when you hear me say "No!" (CHORUS)

Secrets are fun when they're filled with surprise/But not when they hurt us with tricks, threats and lies… (CHORUS)

The fact that this was a "safety song," subtly teaching me to "just say no" to any unwanted intrusion into my personal space, was lost on me. I thought it was a celebration of my body back then, back when we were all young enough to genuinely celebrate our bodies: this is MY body, and I LOVE it! You have your own body that tells YOU when to pee, and mine tells ME when to pee, and it's AWESOME!

I recently remembered this song, and tracked down the lyrics above. Looking at the words that once seemed to me a joyous celebration of self, I now feel entirely new and different emotions. At what point did I learn that, in fact, bodies need to be protected? That tricks, threats, and lies inflicted by others against our physical selves, can be a harsh and painful reality?

On another, but equally important level, when did I stop celebrating my body? Safety is one issue, but so is security-- as in, when do we learn all this insecurity? When and why do most of us transition from loving our bodies to worrying whether or not other people will judge them too harshly?

We don't self-generate all this paranoia, of course; lessons are often learned through repetition and life experiences. I am struck by how frequently people think it is all right to pass judgment on bodies -- particularly on women's bodies. This past weekend, after I delivered a speech, someone said (to a colleague of mine, who he had only just met) something along the lines of "That Beth sure is cute... a little too skinny, though." Meanwhile, just a few months ago, someone else commented directly to me that I "could stand to drop a few pounds." Both times, I was in a professional or academic setting -- and the levels of frustration I have with these comments are multiple.

First of all, I clearly can't win -- I'm always too thin or too fat, apparently. It's like cold weather: always comes a little earlier than we expected, or a little later than we expected -- never right on schedule, is it? Secondly, how is my weight or appearance relevant to the speech or presentation I just gave? Not too sound overly feminist-soap-boxing, but how often do men stand up, give an engaging talk, and then receive feedback along with a hearty handshake: "Joe, I have to tell you, those pants you're wearing just aren't very flattering..."

Third -- who asked you, anyway?!

I'm beginning to recall a lesson I internalized many years ago, while dancing around a tiny duplex filled with the sounds of scratchy-vinyl music:

My body's nobody's body but mine! You run your own body! Let me run mine!


*P.S. I have no explanation for the creepy Peter Alsop record cover that Google Images yielded for me. Safety songs for children by day... movies out on the town with a mannequin by night? Well, if nothing else, Creepy Peter Alsop Album Cover reminds me that I want to see Lars & The Real Girl...

Ready, set...

"If you want something done, give it to a busy person."

I don't even remember the first time I heard this pithy little quote, but it's been part of my life for a good many years now. Generally it's cast in my direction as someone shoves a folder, a flash drive, a set of car keys in my hand, knowing that if they give me the the task, said task will be completed.
Busy is good, bustle is terrific, chaos is an environment in which I am generally quite comfortable. However, at some point, it is possible for one's plate to become too full.

A favorite friend and I went out to brunch earlier this month, and she ordered the special that morning: scrambled eggs and fried chicken. This struck me as oddly avian-cannibal in composition (but I'm a vegetarian, so what do I know?). I politely asked her:

"How's your chicken-and-egg meal?"

To which she perfectly replied: "I think it's good... I just don't know what to eat first."

Indeed. Now imagine if her plate had contained not only chicken and egg, but several dozen other food items getting in the way of her classic dilemma. Where to begin? Where to begin?

Welcome to Crazyville, Population: Everyone.

The other morning, my good friend and I were discussing Crazyville. Crazyville is a neighborhood with which we are both familiar. You have probably lived there at some point, too -- and if you haven't, you will. It's a transitional neighborhood, and the epitome of "transient community," but everyone winds up there. It's a requirement of life: not everyone has to be mayor, but every single one of us has to spend a few nights in Crazyville.

In Crazyville, the houses are always full, but there are also always vacancies. It's hard to point to the charm of Crazyville. People are drawn there for mysterious, unknowable reasons. After all, the neighbors can be bizarre. The night life is lacking. Most city services are insufficient (though there is a recycling program...).

The postal system there is decent; messages from outside of Crazyville are delivered with astounding frequency, though many residents of Crazyville leave their post office boxes unchecked for months on end... so news from the outside world is often delayed.

It's a city of contradictions: people say one thing, then do something else. Dramatic posts on sites like LiveJournal and MySpace reach epic proportions, all originating from the various corners of Crazyville. There are few co-ops, but lots of co-dependency. Everyone there knows, either vaguely or poignantly, that this isn't really the place for them. Some people do take up permanent residence in Crazyville, giving up their rental and purchasing real estate, but most of us ultimately pass through this railroad town. Sometimes, though, moving on is difficult.

Why is it so hard to move out of Crazyville? Well, the rent is low, and you know where all the good restaurants are, and sometimes, there's this roommate who co-signed on the lease...

And, as we all know, moving is a big old pain in the ass.

Thing is, once you're out of Crazyville, you realize just how much you love your new neighborhood. It's strange, at first, but gradually, you make new friends, take a few classes, learn that the new restaurants are actually becoming your new favorites. You think, why didn't I move before now?

Occasionally, you get wind of some friend or loved one who has taken up residence in Crazyville. Knowing how much better things are where you reside now, you send them a postcard. Getting no response, you send a longer letter, perhaps even a real estate brochure for properties outside the Crazyville city limits. Then you remember: the letters make it to the Crazyville Post Office, but the message doesn't really get through until the citizen of Crazyville decides it's time to check their box...

Because it's too good not to share...

Details, details, details

Dear Readers:

October is an extremely travel-heavy month for this little writer, and while I will try to keep up some semblance of a Bethweek posting schedule, it may be a bit erratic for the foreseeable future. The good news is, travel tends to yield stories, so when I do post, I'll try to share the most poignant or gut-busting of the moments.

This week's story is a little of column A, a little of column B -- and mostly a reminder to pay attention to detail, and really clarify your requests:

My travels this week began at 5 a.m. in Jackson, Mississippi. I remember literally nothing about my first flight that day; I somehow stumbled through security, made it onto the little plane bound for Newark, New Jersey, and slept my way up North. I arrived in Newark, and before catching my next plane, an even smaller one destined for Providence, Rhode Island, I had just enough time to get a coffee.

Getting the coffee was a mistake. Getting the coffee meant that I was awake to fully realize the condition of the small second plane.

To begin, the "door wasn't aligning right" with the normal walkway, so we had to all walk outside and climb a rickety staircase to enter the shuddering aircraft. The layout of the tiny space went old-school-overstuffed-leather-seat, aisle, old-school-overstuffed-leather-seat. (Except for my part of the plane, since I was seated in the back, and my row went old-school-overstuffed-leather-seat, aisle, bathroom-with-door-that-wouldn't stay closed). The old-school overstuffed leather seats did not match: some were blue, some tan, some gray, with no evident pattern in their placement.

The only appropriate word for this plane was "hoopty."

As the Air Hoopty began to back away from the terminal, there was this horrible creaking and rocking sound, like a car with poor shocks or off-bearing, only magnified, sounding something like:

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK WONKA WONKA WONKA WONKA...

... as we lurched around the tarmac. More terrifying noises rumbled and squealed and belched their way forward when we began to prepare for takeoff. I closed my eyes and began to pray:

"Please God let me make it to Providence today, let me make it to Providence today, let me make it to Providence today..."

As Air Hoopty heaved its way into the sky, shaking and moaning, realization hit me. I re-examined the words of my prayer. My eyes flew open and my mind quickly edited:

"Providence RHODE ISLAND! Providence RHODE ISLAND! Providence RHODE ISLAND!!!!"

On Being a Grown Up

Senior year of college, several of my friends shared one-quarter of a sprawling old New England manor, a house depressed by its own conversion from affluent one-family home to ramshackle, under-manicured, spliced-int0-four-apartments college rental housing. I, too, lived in once-lovely old home, but way off-campus, so it was my friends' house that became my second home: close to campus, filled with a constant parade of people. It was the site of countless parties, movie nights, celebratory wine bottle-uncorkings as one by one we got into graduate school, accepted jobs, decided to move to Europe and bartend. At weekly dinner parties, all our clever, hilarious, and ridiculous quotes were written on poster-boards on the wall, preserved for us to laugh at again the next weekend.

Towards the end of our senior year, the parties picked up in their frequency and intensity as we all tried to experience as much undergraduate abandon as possible. Sometimes it would become too much for me and I would slip outside, often alone but just as often joined by another temporary refugee. Such was the case one night less than a week before commencement. Sitting on the crumbling first-floor porch of the once-grand house, the din of the second-floor party became a dull background hum. I was sitting, eyes closed, breathing in the brisk-Massachusetts May evening, when a friend eased himself down on the steps beside me.

"Hey," he said. "Seen my girlfriend?"

"She might be in the kitchen," I replied.

"As well she should be," he said with a smirk.

I punched him.

He laughed. "So. Sunday. We'll be Bachelor's, or something. College graduates. Grown-ups."

I shook my head. "Nope."

He raised an eyebrow, gave me a this'll be good look. "Nope?"

"No, I decided that's not how it works," I said, making it up as I went along: "See, you get four years in high school... freshman year, sophomore year, junior year, senior year. Same thing in college, four years, freshman-sophomore-junior-senior."

"We were first-years here," he corrected me. "They called us first-years, not freshmen, because freshmen is sexist. We're at PCU, remember?"

"Says the guys who just said women should be in the kitchen. Anyway, the point is, you get four years. That's the increment. So I've decided that post-college, you get four years before you have to be a grown up: a freshman year--"

"First year."

"Fine - a first year, sophomore year, junior year and senior year out-of-college. You have all that time to figure out how to be a grown-up outside of the college bubble, and then, that fifth year out of college... that's your first year as a grown-up."

He considered this, then nodded: "Good call."

So let it be written, so let it be done -- we had established a new precedent, comfortably far away. After all, freshman year felt so long ago. How quickly could another four years go by?

I woke up a few mornings back and realized: in the blink of an eye. I've used up my four years. In fact, I missed my theoretical commencement, which would have fallen several months ago... and now I find myself halfway through my first year as a self-designated grown up.

I thought, that can't be right. I started to look for clues and the evidence mounted quickly: I not only pay taxes, but complete and file them on my own. I own my own car. I've been paying my own housing, insurance, and general expenses for years. I have a dog and a Master's degree and have been chipping away at my undergraduate loans for some time now. I have business cards. I've moved cross-country multiple times. Last week I had a conversation about pop culture with someone who was born in a year that began with "20" instead of "19" (this is a first-grader who knows her reality television like no other). The friend who bore witness to my post-college adult-track curriculum is soon to be married, and many others are showing similarly alarming signs of maturity.

At some point, we crossed over.

There are plenty of adult milestones I have yet to hit in my own life - I don't think marriage, buying a house or having kids are activities on the immediate horizon, and I'm still sketching out the exact structure of the blueprints for "what I want to be when I grow up." But standing in this new location, surveying the land of Adulthood, I have come to a terrifying realization: There are no grown-ups. It's just us out here, looking around with the same puzzled expression, wondering where all the adults went, and trying to pinpoint just when it was that we stopped having any friends living on the second floor of a decrepit old Boston mansion with insistent music, and quotes on the wall, and a quiet porch for refuge.