A Lifetime of Fat Shaming; or

I Wish I Were as Thin as I Was When I Was First Told I Was Obese.

Anyone who knows me these days knows I am not slim. Some of my doctors have expressed concern about my weight, with regard (they say) to organ health. My view of myself is not flattering. But then, I don’t think it ever has been. In telling this story, I will be frank about my weight and my age. No more hiding.

When did I first start trying to hide my body? At the swimming pool in my pre-teen years I was aware of a slightly pudgy tummy, I would often drape a forearm across my tummy to hide behind. Or I’d wrap a towel around my waist. A friend at high school was at the local swimming hole at the river, reading a book while lying in the sun and told us the next day that a boy she really liked sat next to her and starting a conversation. He wanted her to come for a swim, but she declined. “I really wanted to have that swim with him,” she told us, “but I was lying down on my back and my fat tummy was flattened by gravity. I didn’t want him to see how fat I am when I stood up.”

The things we do to ourselves and to each other…

As a uni student, I’d go for a swim to Bondi Beach on hot summer days, wearing a purple bikini. Sitting in the car with my boyfriend driving, I’d once again drape my arm across my pudgy tummy, which was creased into folds under the seat belt. How could that boy like me, when he could glance across and see how fat my tummy was? Fellow classmates were beautiful and slim. One girl was so slim you could see a thigh gap as she walked through the campus. Magazines we read, including the newly-published Cleo, helped perpetuate negative body image while loudly proclaiming that we should love our bodies. Yet turn the page and there were clothing ads with stick-insect girls, often barely into their teens. The ideal female statistics were 36-24-36 (that’s in inches, pre-metric). Of course I know now, that the clothing we saw promoted in fashion pages were worn by girls who were far smaller than 36-24-36. My own measurements were not ideal — my waist was 28 inches. A whole four inches too big. My bust was 34 inches. Too small. Push-ups were recommended, to build up the pectoral muscles underlying breast tissue.

In November of that year I had my appendix removed. I remember at the hospital my weight was 62 kg. The women’s magazines said I shouldn’t weigh more than 50 kg. Embarrassing! I was 18 years old. I had a lot of growing up to do.

Me and my mother. I am now the age she was in this photo.
As she did for all of us, Mum did the wedding flower arrangements.

Move forward a few years. I had finished with study and was working at the uni. During a quiet period, the uni was offering health checks to staff. I was 25 years old and weighed 65 Kg. The doctor I consulted barely looked up from his notes. “I’m concerned about your weight,” he told his desk. “At 65 kg and 164 cm, you are borderline obese. If you ever want to have a chance at starting a family, you must lose weight.”Thus began a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and eating various diet ‘replacement meals’. The doctor had recommended it. I had a physically active job, I would run everywhere, I was determined to work alongside the men as an equal. But the first day on the job, one of my colleagues was introducing me around the department and I knew I’d have to work hard to make it as an equal. “She’s the replacement for Brian, but she’s a lot prettier,” was the running joke. I knew I wasn’t pretty. But I was female and it was my lot in life to always work harder at it, whatever ‘it’ would happen to be at the time, in order to be accepted.

Despite the doctor’s concerns about my weight, I had no trouble getting pregnant. My first baby was born when I was 27. They say a woman blooms when she’s pregnant, I just felt fatter than ever. But at least I had an excuse. However, weight gained during pregnancy was also watched closely, and each prenatal appointment meant another date with the scales.

Losing baby weight is difficult. I went back to work when the baby was 10 weeks old, and continued to breastfeed. I’d take my morning tea break and lunch break and run to the child care centre nearby for the baby’s feed. She was just over a year old when I fell pregnant again.

We were on holiday in the Whitsundays, I was three months pregnant and defiantly still wearing a bikini. I remember on one fun afternoon we were on a large catamaran and they threw out the boom net to give the brave ones among us a chance to surf in the wake. Hubby held the toddler on deck while I had a turn clinging to the boom net and playing in the churning water behind the boat. I had to cling onto my bikini pants to not lose them in the drag of the water, to the amusement of the other passengers looking on.

Focussed on my baby, completely unaware of the need to hide my ‘ugly, fat body’.
I was three months pregnant here and almost 70 Kg.

Let’s go a few more years ahead. I was doing further study. “The average human male weighs 70 Kg,” we were told. After two babies I now weighed 70 Kg. I was finishing my study when I fell pregnant again. Yes, I was still working full-time, and running between my workplace and the child care centre nearby. But my health was failing, the beginning of what has become a lifelong muscle weakness problem.

When my youngest was three years old, we travelled to Greece with my parents-in-law. While not fashion-conscious, I was aware of what clothing looked better on me, and what made me look fat and frumpy. New doctors were looking after me, but expressing concern that with my new balance problems I needed to avoid falls. “You’re a big girl,” one doctor said to me. “You could really do yourself some damage in a fall.”

Greece was amazing, but I no longer ran anywhere. I walked around what I could, using Canada crutches. With three children also tending to tire easily, I was happy to be the babysitter and rest when they needed to. But I was still trying to do as much as I could to enjoy the adventure.

More years have passed and I’ve learned to accept myself. I’m not pretty. I’m not slim. I’ve stopped caring, I tell myself. I wear a bikini again even though I get laughed at sometimes. A bikini (mine is quite modest these days) is simply more convenient. I still make jokes about my body and my weight, I try to eat healthily but in reality I’ve been on an extreme calorie-restricted diet for decades now. I’ve seen dieticians over the years — they tell me I don’t eat enough, but when I eat what they tell me to, I gain weight fast. So I’ve had to find out what works for me.

The other day, hubby bought a new scanner with the express purpose to digitise old slides and negatives. The first photos he scanned were our wedding photos, from when we were 22 years old. And then we found the photos of the Whitsundays holiday. And Greece. I remembered how I’d felt about myself at the time, my self-consciousness over my weight.
I looked in astonishment. I remembered seeing the wedding photos years ago, I recognised the Whitsundays. I knew my face in the photos. But I was pretty! How could I have remembered otherwise? And I was slim! Where was the pudgy tummy I remembered?

All those years, and I’d accepted being second-rate as my lot in life. Some women are born beautiful, I was born ordinary. It is what it is.

Until I looked at the photo of the young bride, who did her own hair and make-up, who’d made her own wedding dress out of a bolt of cotton broderie anglaise, who thought she was fat and plain. And the photo of the young mother, already pregnant with her second child and wearing a skimpy bikini in the tropical Queensland sunshine. The young woman whose doctor had said she was obese, and who had not been able to lose weight but only slowly gain it over the years.

I have more important things to worry about these days. But the reminder as I looked at those photos and realised how wrong I have been for all my adult life, tells me that as always, I still have a lot to learn. As do we all.

I weighed 96 Kg this morning. And I still wear a bikini to the beach. But I will no longer drape my arm to try to hide my pudgy tummy. Hey, I’m nearly 70 years old. And with what my body has been through, it’s done pretty well, considering.

I have the body of a goddess, I’ve decided. Even if it’s more Venus of Willendorf than Aphrodite these days, it’s about time I value what I have. I have to accept, you’re never as fat as you think you are. Or as others make you think you are

Stone Soup

A stone. Is it magic? Or just a stone? How to get a meal out of nothing.

I’m going back a long way now, to a holiday we had when my children were young. We’d been up on the Sunshine Coast, enjoying a holiday in the early Spring. The only way to afford a holiday when you have four children is to find an inexpensive apartment. Definitely not a hotel!

This facility had a swimming pool, but it was far too cold to swim. The apartment had a kitchen which we’d put to good use, cooking our meals rather than eating out every night with four kids.

The day before our departure we were packing and getting some washing done. But the family still needed to be fed, preferably on whatever we had left. The fridge was fairly bare by this stage.

“Let’s make stone soup!” I announced to the girls. They already knew the story, thanks to Jim Henson’s “Storyteller” series. But we were going to do our own version of the traditional folk tale, which goes back hundreds of years through many cultures.

Beside the swimming pool was a rockery of grey river pebbles, some streaked with marble. Miss Ten grabbed one where the layer of marble looked like a ring. “Let’s use this one! It looks magical!”

Back in the kitchen I began the story.

A tramp was looking for shelter on a frosty night. He was tired, hungry and cold but the only house he could try belonged to an old miser. There were signs on the property saying, “Get out! No freeloaders here!”

The tramp read the notices, shrugged, and knocked on the door.

The miser opened the door. “Well?”

“You have a fine house, sire,” said the tramp. “It is going to be a cold night. Could I please sleep indoors in your house? Just a quiet corner out of the wind and storm.”

The miser was furious. “Can’t you read?” he shouted. “No freeloaders!” and went to slam the door.

The tramp stuck his foot in the door.

“Oh, I quite agree! You can’t be too careful! But I’m not a freeloader. In exchange for your hospitality, I will cook you a delicious soup.”

“What with?” the miser asked. “All I see is you, skin, bone and rags.”

“Ah, but sire, I have a magic stone. With that, I can make soup. All I need is a pot of water to put over the fire.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a river pebble, grey with a circle of marble on it.

“Just like mine?” asked Miss Ten.

“Just like yours,” I told her.

All we need is a stone. And some water in a pot… all else is seasoning.

The miser was curious. And there was the prospect of a free dinner. “Very well, then. But mind you sleep in the furthest corner. I don’t want wear and tear on the rug. My dog sleeps there.”

With the cottage door closed behind him, the tramp rubbed his cold hands together to try to bring back some feeling.

“Well? Where’s this soup you promised me?” asked the miser.

“I’ll need — a fire!” The tramp rushed over to the fireplace to warm his hands a little more. “And a pot to put the soup in. And some water. That’s all.”

The miser fetched a small cauldron and filled it with water from the trough outside. “Here!” he handed it over. “Do your magic! Let’s see this miracle soup! I’m betting the only miracle will be why I didn’t slam the door on your face!”

“Have faith,” replied the tramp. He dropped the stone into the pot.

“Well?” the miser asked. “You’ve got your stone, and your water.”

“It takes time,” the tramp told him. “Do you have an old bone? Just something you would have thrown away anyway. We can stir it with that.” The tramp sipped at the contents of the cauldron. “Hmm, needs seasoning. Do you have any salt?”

Leftover barbecued chicken, picked mostly clean.

In the kitchen in the holiday apartment, Miss Ten handed me a spoon. “I think there’s some sachets of salt left over from a takeaway dinner. Here!”

“Let’s look in the fridge. Are there any old bones which we might throw away?” I already knew there were bones left over from a barbecued chicken.

Miss Ten produced the remnants of the chicken. I noted that the stuffing was still there. None of the kids would touch chicken stuffing. We’d picked the bones almost clean. It went into the pot, along with the contents of two salt sachets.

In the miser’s hut in the forest, the pot had been stirred with an old ham bone that still had some meat on it, and some salt had been added. It was coming up to heat and the tramp was enjoying the warmth of the fire. But he would have to feed the miser well if he was to stay warm this night.

The miser hovered. “Is it nearly ready?”

“Just a little longer. Do you have any old, wrinkled root vegetables which you won’t eat? Just stuff for the rubbish heap. It will give the soup a bit of body. Some potatoes, perhaps. Or old, stale bread.”

The miser scurried around and found a wrinkled onion, some potatoes and some skinny root vegetables. The tramp put them into the pot. “It won’t be long now.”

Back in the apartment kitchen, Miss Ten looked in the fridge. “Here are some carrots!”

“We need those carrots,” I told her. “I’m going to peel them and we can have carrot sticks to nibble in the car while we drive to the park this afternoon. But here’s an onion. And let me peel those carrots while we wait for the soup.”

Onion ends and outer layer; shrivelled cloves of garlic. Carrot peel. Into the pot.

I decided I would use the onion for dinner, but I needed some onion in the soup too. So I peeled the onion, taking an extra layer. The onion peel went into the soup, along with the carrot peel. We tasted our soup, Miss Ten and I. She peered into the pot. “I can’t see the stone, Mummy. Is it gone?”

“No, the stone is just hiding behind the bones and the scraps. We’ll see it at the end.”

The tramp was now warm as toast and had been tasting the soup all through. It had started with a pot of water, and his magic stone. But he had added salt, some root vegetables, some old bones and other bits of rubbish that the miser would not have bothered to eat and now the soup was thick, rich and meaty from the old bones. What the miser would have thrown away would have fed a poor family for a week.

At last the tramp was satisfied. “It’s ready! And a finer soup you’ll never have had!”

The miser hurried over with a bowl and a spoon. He saw the sad look on the tramps face, and reluctantly produced another bowl and spoon for the tramp. Together they sat and enjoyed the soup. The miser exclaimed at how tasty it was, how it warmed him and what a marvel it all was. “Please, good sir,” the miser told the tramp, “I will give you a full bag of gold. Let me buy this marvellous stone from you. It is a wonder!”

The tramp smiled. All he had wanted was shelter from the storm. Now he was warm from the fire, had eaten well of the soup which had been concocted with unwanted food from the miser’s larder, and now he was offering money. But the tramp pretended to be reluctant. “Let me think on it overnight. I have been glad of this stone in my wanderings on the road. I will be sad to part with it.”

The miser was now very eager to please his guest. “You take my bed tonight. I will sleep on the mat with my old dog. Maybe after a good night’s sleep you will think more kindly on my offer.”

In our kitchen, Miss Ten tasted our soup. I was very happy with it, and glad I’d been able to produce it with the last discards of our holiday larder. The seasoning in the unwanted stuffing had added flavour and some thickening. Miss Ten exclaimed at the marvel of producing a tasty soup with just a stone, and old scraps from the fridge. But she pushed it aside and took a carrot stick instead.

A strained chicken stock, full of flavour, made from the leftover bits that would be thrown away by most people.

Rice cooked in the same stock, with bits of meat picked off the bones, and a thin-sliced sausage.

By adding more — egg, vegetables, whatever else we can scavenge in the fridge — we have a meal fit for a king.

So what happened next morning, Mummy?” asked Miss Ten, munching on a carrot stick.

I told her the rest of the story as I poured the soup into a jug and picked out the scraps of onion, carrot and chicken bone to put in the bin. Miss Ten reached for the stone and washed it under the tap. “I want to keep this,” she announced, and put it in her holiday treasures box.

Back in the cottage, the tramp spent a very comfortable night in a warm feather bed, in a hut with a burning fire. But when he woke, he knew he needed to get on his way. But the miser was reluctant to see him leave.

“Please, good sir,” the miser begged. “Will you sell me your stone? Perhaps two bags of gold?”

With a great show of reluctance, the miser reached into his pocket for his stone. “Very well,” he sighed. Your gold will help me feed myself for a while, at least.” He handed over the stone as the miser eagerly pushed the gold into the tramp’s hands. And then the tramp found himself almost hurried out of the door as the miser took the little pot to the water trough to fill it up.

As he left, the tramp advised, “You will always be able to make soup with the stone, with just water. But it always improves the flavour if you add a few other things too.”

The miser was back in the cottage, door closed on the world and the tramp could see the smoke spiral higher from the chimney as the fire was stoked up to boil the pot.

As he walked away through the morning snow, the tramp smiled. At the bottom of the hill he paused for a moment. He bent over the river bank and picked up a stone. He put it in his pack where it nestled next to two bags of gold. He continued on his way, still smiling.

I put the jug of soup in the fridge. That night, with the rest of the onion and a small bag of rice, I made risotto. A meal conjured from nothing.

Years passed in our home, Miss Ten kept the magic stone and made many pots of soup with it. She became a skilled cook, able to improvise. When she grew up and left home to get married, she took her magic soup stone with her.

Christmas on the move

We’d planned to be in Canberra from early Monday before Christmas to babysit the kids, with school finished for the year but parents still working. We were then going to stay until Christmas Day, leaving the next day (Boxing Day) to head home. I planned to use the quiet evenings to work on writing and editing. Then we heard that we would be allowed to attend our granddaughter’s dance concert. The choir concert (a few weeks earlier) was unfortunately not open for audiences.

We had already booked accommodation and planned to drive down on Sunday, but the dance concert was midday. With a three and a half hour drive, we’d have to ‘bug out’ early from home. We also planned to bring our son Rob with us. He had an event to attend on Saturday, so the schedule was tight. We were considering leaving on Saturday ourselves, and perhaps getting Rob to come down by train. We booked the extra night’s accommodation (in a different hotel, the one for the majority of our stay wasn’t available that night).

We discussed it all on Friday night. Rob was determined to attend his event on Saturday so we went online to book a train. We could have booked Sunday, but would have missed the dance concert to collect him from the railway station in Canberra, so we reluctantly booked his train for Monday instead. All other trains were booked out.

Within five minutes of booking (and paying for) the train ticket, Rob’s phone went off. The Saturday event was cancelled. There was an increasing Covid hot spot in Sydney’s Northern Beaches area, about as far away from us as you could get and still be in Sydney. So could he come with us after all?

“I’m working tomorrow morning on the bread run,” he explained. “It’s too late to let them know now.”

Rob decided to come down by train on Monday. That way he could work Sunday morning as well.

With the Northern Beaches Covid cluster growing in momentum we felt some disquiet setting out. Strong restrictions were coming back in, but we knew we were still okay to travel. We double-checked, loaded the car and set off. We’d packed the car carefully to allow for Rob’s seat and luggage coming back with us.

We wore our masks whenever we got out of the car — buying fuel, buying lunch, checking in to the hotel in Canberra. The hotel was full of cricketers! There were security guards and Covid marshals on every exit, which was disconcerting.

Next day was a more relaxed bugout with perishables carefully packed in a cooler back somewhere buried under the load of Christmas presents. We were carrying gifts from the extended family to the “Canberra mob”. Fortunately we were able to park under a handy tree and wait.

Our grandson almost exploded into our car with his energy to announce their arrival.

Queuing for the concert was interesting. We wore masks, but in disease-free Canberra this seemed to be an exception. We were all expected to leave 1.5 metres between us in the queue, but inside it was full seats. We kept our masks on…

That evening there was a press conference. The border was closing at midnight. I rang Rob. Could he get down to us before midnight, by car? Nope, not packed. With the likelihood of heavier traffic than usual, the chance of him getting to us by midnight was vanishingly small. There was also the chance that we, as recent arrivals, could be sent home or, worse, made to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks. Should we leave? We’d delivered our Christmas presents already.

The kids were upset at their Uncle Rob not coming for Christmas.

We took a chance. Next morning we watched the news anxiously. Yes, the border was closed but we had no problems. We’d booked time slots to take the kids to some of the public places around Canberra and decided to go ahead. If we were going to babysit, we’d have fun too, and see the sights.

First stop, Parliament House in Canberra. This is a fascinating place, I’ll write it up separately some other time. Under Covid conditions and with two young children, we weren’t going to have the usual leisurely tour. With parliament not sitting, there wasn’t a lot to see. The kids loved the Lego model of Parliament House, complete with Lego sheep on the lawn on the roof (Parliament House in Canberra is an earth-covered building). They really liked the artwork and some of the stories that various guides told us in passing.

After Parliament House, we went to the Australian War Memorial. Again, our time here was pre-booked to ensure that not too many people were inside at any time. Our grandson wanted to look at the eternal flame first, he was fascinated with the burning gas bubbling up from the pool. From there we went to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I explained to the kids that nobody knows who is buried there, except we know he’s Australian from World War I. So for all the families who lost a brother, a son or a father in WWI, there is some peace in knowing that the man buried there could be him. He represents them all, all Australian servicemen and servicewomen who never came home.

We looked for names on the Wall of Remembrance then explored the displays inside. Again, with the children we knew their attention spans would be short, but we think some of what they saw was understood.

The next day we took the kids to Telstra Tower on top of Black Mountain. It was on their list of places they’d wanted to see. We went up into the tower and enjoyed the view from the observation deck, amazed at the wind.

Blowin’ in the wind — it was my Marylin Monroe moment.

On the way back to the car we saw a young ringtail possum snoozing in a nearby tree. “It’s all an adventure,” we told them.

Snoozing ringtail possum in the fork of the tree.

We collected their mother and went for a drive in the bush, as requested by our grandson. We ended up in a place we’d never been to, or even heard of — Gibraltar Falls.

Lady beetle on the granite boulder, Gibraltar Falls.

Mating beetles (it’s that time of the season). Gibraltar Falls, ACT.

We hiked down the slippery granite steps to the falls, and the kids exclaimed over a lady beetle. Little things and big things caught their attention. I got out my macro lens and we explored further, getting up close and personal to beetles, flowers and the lady beetle. It seemed a world away from coronavirus.

Christmas Eve was all about preparation. Last minute grocery shopping, and keeping the kids out of the kitchen while their father set about his one day of culinary glory in the year — cooking up a feast. Far too much food, but all of it tasty. It will all get eaten, but not necessarily today.

Gifts in various stages of being opened.

Greek-style lamb on the barbecue for Christmas dinner.

Christmas feasting done — leftovers for Boxing Day.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Stay safe, stay well.

Tomorrow we drive home, and back to higher restrictions.

Daisy Chains – a Lost Art

Thin stems make daisy chains challenging, but they can still be done.

Seeing the field of daisies in Goulburn reminded me of making daisy chains as a kid. I taught myself out of a book, because everyone else in the family was working or too busy. The book was helpful, though, and taught me a few other plant games. I remarked how much I wished for something to relieve my boredom, in the days before iPads and the internet.

Perhaps that is why I became so involved with writing. I read books avidly, whatever was to hand. But also, playing outdoors, I learned about the world around me, at least in my immediate vicinity. I watched the ants, the birds, the plants and learned their changing ways through the year. And so I studied science. But writing is always stimulated by what we experience in the world around us.

While in Canberra visiting the family, the children were having an electronics-free day. We played a board game then went for a walk. The children rode their bikes. Canberra is ideally suited to this, with so many walking trails and bike paths keeping exercise away from the roads and in the green spaces. At least the spaces are green at the moment, after so much rain! But as we walked and talked, it became clear that children these days do not have the same skills in games with weeds as they do with electronic games.

A profusion of weeds made excellent material for some daisy chains. All the plants I will now describe are introduced weeds, but so common here that we’ll never get rid of them.

A blurry dandelion clock – hard to focus when I can’t see the screen for the sunshine!

Dandelion clocks are a game that children can play, although gardeners hate the distribution of seed that results. The game is, you can tell the time by how many puffs it takes to blow off all the seeds. I remember as a child being puzzled when a particularly stubborn seed clinging on for dear life resulted in a ‘time’ of 25 o’clock!

Plaintain flowers make fun pop guns to shoot at each other with. To make a plantain gun, you pick a long-stemmed flower, fold the stem over and around behind the flower head, and then rapidly pull the flower stem until it is pulled violently against the folded loop of stem. The flower head should break and fly off. This is a game that gardeners like.

Bend the stalk around in a circle to cross over itself behind the flower head.

Fold the end of the stem over the stem behind the flower head.

Hold the folded stem firmly, but make sure the stalk can still slip through freely. Then pull sharply!
Left hand, here, pulls. The plantain head should fly off. Biodegradable fun.

As a child I would deck myself and my friends in daisy chains. To make a daisy chain, you choose flowers that have stems thick enough and soft enough to take a thumbnail cutting a vertical slit in the stem. Choose a flower with a small head as your first flower (for reasons which shall become obvious later on). Thread through the stem of your next flower, and draw it gently through until the flower head has reached the slit in the previous stem. Now do this again until you either run out of daisies, or your chain is long enough. Then choose a flower with the strongest, thickest stalk you can find and thread it onto the chain. Make a vertical slit in the stem the same way, but this time make it longer. Go carefully! You don’t want the hole to tear away at the side!

The head of the chain. Thumbnail making a vertical slit in the stem.

Threading the next daisy through the hole. Then make a thumbnail slit in this next daisy stem. Repeat.

Poking the first daisy head through the last (larger) hole in the final stem — the flower head gets a bit squashed but you can fluff out the petals again,.

Now take the first flower in the chain (remember I said it should be small!) and thread the flower head through the larger hole of the last daisy.

Voila! Flower fashion!

You can also use clover or any flower with a stem that will be strong enough yet soft enough. True dandelions don’t work well because their hollow, milky stems tear out too easily.

And remember, daisy chains are for now only. Once the sun goes down, the flowers close and day is done.

More daisy chains tomorrow!