Whatever landscape I am navigating is directly related to how much and what kind of depression I am carrying around with me. The murky Pacific shores that have been underfoot since last summer became more like piles of sharp basalt, jagged and sudden, with the news of my father’s suicide.

—-

Another thing is happening, which feels big, but perhaps is only big in the way that a rock rolling around between your foot and the sole of your shoe feels big. Usually, once you have the clarity and time to look at it, it’s surprisingly small. Right now, this thing still feels big, it’s still with me all the time, and I am walking around with it every day trying to figure out it’s true mass as it nudges into the softest parts of my skin. It’s a thing, and its existence makes me feel tender.

I am a pessimist in so many ways, and I am sure in time it will only be the smallest of pebbles, but… secretly I hope it’s bigger.

(I apologize for being vague, I really do, but it seemed dishonest to leave it out entirely.)

—-

I have this theory about how I respond so intensely to positive feedback because I rarely got positive feedback from my mom growing up (it was complicated, but now it’s fine and I understand and I love her all the same), and though my dad gave me lots of outward love and adoration, it was always with expectations or an agenda. It always felt like he was giving me something I needed in order to, someday, take it away from me or remind me that I owed him one. My father was a scorekeeper who really only kept track of what he felt entitled to.

Now, when someone says something nice, especially someone I respect, I cry. When someone does something nice for me, especially someone I care about, I cry. I cry a lot these days.

—-

Tuesday morning I found myself coming down from all of the feelings of the last week, and working my last day at Schmancy, where I’ve worked a few days a week since last Summer. I am thankful to Kristen for keeping me employed even when, in all honesty, I have felt like the worst version of myself most of the time since I started. The last 8 months have been rough, but Kristen has been flexible and forgiving, and I have enjoyed my time there. But, with wedding season around the corner and a work-from-home gig that I love, plus Kristen is looking to fill her summer with adventures and needs someone at the store more often than I can provide, it was time to move on.

I also received a very kind message from my friend Ijeoma, who said very nice things about the thing I wrote about my dad, and basically rolled me (in my already softened state) in a thick layer of meat tenderizer, like Shake N Bake but with way more emotions. She gave me kind of compliments that fill you up and push over all your other emotional dominoes. I needed it.

—-

After work, I got a message from my dad’s wife (he married her when I was 5 but weren’t together for most of the last 20 years). She asked for money to help pay for his cremation, to fulfill his “last wishes”. There were many things about this that sat poorly with me, not the least of which is the fact that I don’t have any money. Ever. To ask someone of no means to help pay for their degenerate father’s cremation, after he just recently pawned the only piece of heirloom jewelry I was supposed to receive from my dead grandmother, something that had been promised to me my whole life. After he spent a decade lying to the Social Security office saying he was the primary care provider to me and not paying child support. After my aunt and cousins have spent all of their money and most of their time repairing the house that he destroyed… Not to be a Tumblr Teen, but I Just Can’t Even. The nerve.

Later in the night, I replied and told her that I am sorry for her loss (genuinely), but I cannot contribute anything financial or otherwise, and that I am still heartbroken about the ring, and that my father took until there was nothing left to take. She replied by telling me that I have no heart and that my dead grandparents would be ashamed of me.

(I was tempted to reply with the JO gif, but I didn’t. This time.)

Somewhere in all of this, I saw my dear friend Rev, who casually asked me how I was. He has been on tour the last few weeks and has missed out on All The Big Things, and I honestly didn’t even know where to start. “I’m fine. My dad died. I am experiencing everything as if I am a raw wound, like a snail without a shell, and if you say anything nice or sad I am likely to cry. Can I have another cheap beer please?”

—-

When the year turned over this year and we all woke up brand new versions of us on the first days of 2015, shucking our 2014-and-previous selves like corn husks, the only resolution I had was to challenge myself in one specific way: to push the boundaries of my own concept of being body positive and my comfort therein.

I have been at least thinking about body positivity and fat acceptance since I was 13 years old and first took a ‘zine making class with the amazing ethereal powerhouse that is Nomy Lamm, but I did not start actively engaging in the body positive community until 10 years later, when I had also started to really understand feminism. The two, of course, are deeply intertwined, as it is our ol’ pal the patriarchy who tells us that white male voices are the only voices that really matter, but also, our bodies are ugly, and we should buy all these things that are sold by white men in order to try and not be ugly and you absolutely need to give these white men your money to try and un-ugly yourself else other men may never get a boner for you and what a terrible fate that would be, and also we are fat, which is the very worst thing we could be, because it means you are not only ugly but, like, unlovable and unsexy and generally worthless and you and your fat body are nothing but a gurgling cystic tumor on the behind of society and the only way to fix this is by, hey, giving white men your money to buy programs and memberships and plans that, by the way, factually and scientifically do not work.

See? Not only related, but truly you cannot understand one without understanding the other.

I am fortunate in that, for me, the body acceptance communities and the feminist communities I participate in are largely one and the same. Sure, some are not as progressive in the other arena as I would like (looking at you, Men’s Rights Club), but they grow and change and overlap together. In the seven or so years that I have been participating in this community, the dialogue has changed and progressed in ways that I really appreciate: years ago, the dialog was often (and unfortunately) centered on validating fat bodies as sexy and beautiful. Now, the dialog is often about how nobody owes you health (or sexiness, or beauty), all bodies are good bodies worthy of respect, and representation of all bodies is important in the media (you hear that, Lane Bryant? A bunch of acceptably curvy bodies with big boobs and small waists does not a revolution make).

The most dominant dialog today, especially in popular media, tends to be about clothes. Indeed, dressing in ways that make your body seen and forcing other people to recognize you and your fat body, is absolutely a political act. I am infinitely proud of my friends who have made careers out of making their bodies, clothed in creative and inspiring outfits, platforms for body acceptance. However, that conversation does not resonate with me emotionally or spiritually the way it did at some points in my early twenties. I still read about these issues, and I support them fully, but I struggled with the idea that the best way for me to accept and love my body, and the best way for me to be politically active within that body, would be to clothe it, take pictures of it, and put those photos on the internet. The reality is that I wear cut up pop-punk shirts most days of the week, and the main thing I look for when buying a new dress is “will I be able to get cake frosting out of this?” The roll of fatshion blogger is filled with many powerful voices and I don’t feel the need to throw mine into the mix, but I do feel a restlessness to contribute something, or at least experience the vulnerability and challenge of new territory.

So, I waited.

A few days before 2014 ended, I saw a post on Facebook that local musician Tomo Nakayama was looking for folks of all body shapes, sizes, and colors to model for him, possibly naked, for an upcoming music video. I trusted Tomo because all of his projects are honest and beautiful, and I trusted that he would be respectful to the participants (plus, a career in politics or in education is not in my future), so I sent in an e-mail to the producer, Deep. In the e-mail, I was honest: I have tattoos, and colored hair, and I am fat. They replied, and thanked me for my interest, and gave me some more information on the project. A few informative e-mails proceeded, and a few weeks later, I found myself in a basement studio on Capitol Hill, the last model after their marathon three day shoot, wearing nothing, not even my glasses.

I was surprised by how comfortable I felt. Tomo, Deep, and painter Emelie were exceptionally respectful and accommodating, and my only insecurity was how often I was blinking as they filmed me, motionless, on the studio floor. In all honesty, the 90 minutes or so I spent in the studio flew by, and as I walked in the brisk, wet January air to my bus on Denny, I was almost disappointed in how unaffected I felt. The grey blanket of Pacific Northwest winters and my own inescapable depression seemed to be a callous on my heart, the one that wanted so badly to grow and be pushed.

—-

Yesterday, as I waited for the bus to see Rev, after reading the message from my estranged step mom, I sat in the rain and watched the video for Tomo Nakayama’s Darkest Seasons. There I am, for nine seconds, without my glasses, without make up, truly vulnerable, very much a snail without a shell.

How entirely appropriate for this video to be shared on the day that I feel so naked, like my trash fire of a brain astral projected this thing to land perfectly on this earth and bring things weirdly full circle.

Watching it now, in the context I have of jagged rocks underfoot and a raw tenderness in my heart, I feel powerful. I feel visible. My body, my whole self, with all of it’s sensitivities and stretch marks and soft curves, it’s fine. I am fine, and the parts of me that are not fine… They’ll get there. I have faith in the weird and beautiful and complicated ways the universe works. Someday my landscape will be soft grass and sunshine, perfect hills like the ones on my body.

But there’s a light at the end of the gray

‘Cos you know it is true what they say

There’s a hope beyond reason in the love we have made

Though it’s hard to remember

There’s a light at the end of the gray

