Fat, Pretty, and Soon to be Old. Kimberly Dark
morbidly obese. This is a fact, though it is not necessarily true. The truth of how I inhabit this body is complex. It includes the duress of stigma and the joy of movement and creation. The research says that being too fat is unhealthy—“the research”— that unified thing that everyone quotes, sans specificity. Height-to-weight ratios can indeed serve as a proxy for body fat percentage—it’s not terribly reliable in describing a person’s life and health, but the process can yield data that can be factual based on specific parameters. The truth of living is complex and adaptive. I’m a storyteller in part because the truth never sits still. It dances, slumps, rolls in the dirt, and comes home after curfew. I help people understand how their particular positions and training influence what comes to be seen as truth or fiction, immutable or changeable.
Sometimes a form of hatred and scapegoating can become so imbedded in the public discourse that it becomes laudable; science seems to support it. The popularity of eugenics science comes to mind, along with the obesity epidemic as examples of how science is part of culture and vice versa. When I was a kid, I did all the same things that my slender friends did—all of them. I swam and biked and walked up hills late at night on my way home from parties. Sometimes I had a great time, though overall I resisted physical activity in the company of others. I felt fearful and pressured, and I didn’t compete well. If you would argue that because I’m fat, I did not sustain the same “health benefits” from those activities that my friends did, you must be arguing that it was because of the stress of derision or other as yet uncharted factors. There was not as much joy in my walking, my bike riding, my horseplay—this I can report. I was fearful that I would not look at home in these activities, not be welcomed, and not be entitled to live a full life in the body I have. This I can report. Stress affects my body. We are never separate from the social sea in which we swim. The social world and its science are complex and intricate. We can want many things at once, and it’s hard to tell what causes which outcomes. I turn to stories as one way to make sense of the world.
So how will I recover the emotional neutrality I lost when I used the language that associates my very being with death and disease? How do I move on comfortably? Fortunately, awareness of how language and derision affect well-being can itself be a call to healing. When we take the time to really hear what causes us pain and ill health and oppression, then it’s much easier to know that something requires redress. That’s the first step: awareness that we are living in a time of fat-hatred and that the stigmatized body requires particular care. A lot of people have stigmatized bodies—fat is just one form. People of color, disabled people, short men, very tall women, more—all bear particular social burdens and must take care. Second, I remind myself that the injury of stigma is not about me. It is separate from my body, my actions, and my life. I remember that I live in a culture that does not promote health; it promotes conformity. It’s not personal. And I have the power to promote my own health and to help others. That instantly makes me feel more alive.
The medicine for healing stress is within us. I trust that resilience and ingenuity are also embedded in the cells of the stigmatized person. Body awareness, conscious relaxation, and a will to help others are powerful health-promoters. As we come together, we can remind one another that health is also complex. We can look for and promote healing, and we can construct systems and language that promote understanding rather than just creating facts. And in doing so, we can become allies. Many who look well are not healthy. We can each bring our gifts and help each other toward greater vibrancy.
When I think back to my angry younger self trudging uphill behind my friend that night, feeling miserable and alone, I appreciate my teenage self most for this: she did not accept a simple story. Though she doubted her worth, she rewrote a narrative in which her own dignity was central. She honed her power to change perception. She learned to level her breathing, and she continued practicing joy when she could, without taking on negative labels as the truth of her identity. Her fortitude and savoir faire constructed the person I am today. During the years that I’ve been telling stories—on stage and in writing—I’ve seen audience members access their own ingenuity simply by reflecting on the examples I offer. I’ve seen others develop the ability to rewrite their own well-being, to become positive actors in their own health rather than victims of morbid narratives. The language we use to describe our bodies can illuminate pathways to good or ill health. We do well to keep looking for what serves, what heals, what connects. We do well to name those things. And to tell the truth about them in as many ways as we can find.
3. Diamond Jim
When you’re a kid, adult relationships are tough to figure. You just watch and listen; then you blurt out your opinions and wait for the laughter, the corrections, the stern looks. It’s not all clear at first, especially with a mother. She changes around other people. My mother was so powerful when we were alone but then so different at other times—especially around men.
I remember watching the different persona she put on at the holiday parties—those were different than the fancy parties where everyone had on a more formal face. At holiday parties, everyone was dressed up, festive; the food was plentiful and exciting, but the people were relaxed. They were drinking punch and cocktails, talking like old friends. They were old friends, but a kid doesn’t know that. There were certain people we only saw at those parties, and when you’re a kid that means you’ve only seen them four or five times ever. It didn’t occur to me that my mother had known some of those people for years. She’d had a long life before mine.
After one Christmas party, I said, “Diamond Jim likes you!” And my mother chuckled and said, “Who are you calling ‘Diamond Jim’?”
“That’s the guy with the diamond ring on his little finger,” I confirmed. Most of the men didn’t wear diamonds. She laughed again and said, “He doesn’t like me like that.”
But I insisted, “Yes, he does!” And she waved me off.
I saw the way he looked at her as I hung on her chair in the living room where the adults were gathered, speaking jovially to one another. I hung on the arm of her chair until the hostess sent me back to the rec room to play with the other kids. We had our own snack table and lots of decorations, and the hostess’s son set up a stage with a black curtain and a record player, from which he lip-synced to Cabaret. They were a party-throwing family with a big house overlooking the sea. At Halloween, that same stage was central to a haunted house, but at Christmas he wore a red velvet bowtie and a green vest, and that year he was acting out Cabaret. My mother later said that show was “too old for me.” I just thought it was boring. I liked how flamboyant that boy was, though. He was a few years older than me. I would never do that sort of thing in front of other kids. Kids were mean.
Grown-ups were interesting, and they had better food. I hung around the punch and cookies and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon. I watched Diamond Jim and my mother and the other men and women as they conducted their party. I watched and stayed quiet, in order not to be sent away sooner than necessary.
My mother was pretty but not flashy. She was classy. That’s what people called her—a beautiful woman, classy. She didn’t wear low-cut dresses, even at the holiday party. Her hair was short and colored in such a way that no one knew it was colored. It just looked like it was always that way: perfect. My mother rarely looked nervous, even when she was. I learned how to look closely, pay attention to different tones in her voice. I learned how see her pleasure and her displeasure—the latter being more frequent, the older I became.
Diamond Jim was smiling big at all the women at that table as I watched from the punch bowl. He stood, and they were seated at the round, fold-up table that had been brought into the living room for the party. The ladies, in their high heels and fancy clothes, were seated—five of them—with one seat free at the table. When the men visited the table, they stood and chatted—brought a new cocktail to a lady if one was required. I could have been watching any of the men, as they interacted with my mother, but Diamond Jim was big, and he smiled so broadly, and he wore a diamond ring. He caught my eye.
He seemed to look longer at my mother than at the other women. It was that prolonged gaze—just a beat or two longer than truly polite. That stare might be affection, or it might contain a drop of hostility. It was hard to tell, as a kid. Diamond