Love Your Tree

Eve Ensler, the writer of The Vagina Monologues came to our campus last Sunday. I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to go and listen to her talk on her play, "The Good Body". She's a really liberal feminist, and I'm...not. Plus I've heard everything there is to know about body image, right? Some of the stuff she said was really blunt and I didn't really agree with it, but I am SO glad that I went. She is an amazing speaker.

For me, the most poignant moment was when she said to us, "Be bold and LOVE YOUR BODY. STOP TRYING TO FIX IT. It was never broken."

"The Good Body" was inspired by the negative feelings she'd had about her stomach. Eve Ensler felt that she overcame a lot of struggles in her life (trauma, sexual abuse, etc) and then her thoughts centered around her stomach and how much she realized she hated it because it was this "ugly" thing that held a lot of bad secrets of her past and defined who she was now.

She went through this whole process to try to understand herself and why was it that she felt so much hatred towards this one body part. And she brought up her experiences as a playwright who interviewed thousands of women all over the world about how each woman feels she hates at least one body part. This one woman came up to her and said "I don't hate my body. I love all my body parts. ...I just hate my face!" Everyone laughed. I thought that was a really good lesson about understanding the reality we live in.

She was very articulate and eloquent in her writing, but also in how she described her experiences, traveling the world and meeting women in places as remote as Afganistahn, etc, who ALL have body image issues to some degree.

Her last story was definitely amazing. She had asked a 74 year old African woman if she liked her body and she said, "Do I like my body? My body? I love my body. God gave me this body." Then she went on to a metaphor and said "Look at that tree. Now look at that one. Do you like that tree? Do you hate that tree 'cause it doesn't look like that tree? You're a tree. I'm a tree...You've got to love your body. Love your tree."

Plus, on a totally different note, probably the whole reason I went in the first place instead of somewhere else I had wanted to go that day (a corn maze with APO) was I had wanted to see some people I hadn't seen in awhile. And I had promised one friend that I'd go with her so she wouldn't be along. And I did see a lot of people. I saw someone I haven't seen in a year, it was awesome!

The only thing I didn't really like about Eve's talk was during the Q&A session when she mentioned specific foods she didn't eat because they didn't make her body feel good (i.e. she cut all sugar/carbs/meat out of her diet).

Well...nevermind, I actually think that was the best part because Dr. Crawford's jaw dropped, he looked like he was thinking, "Shut. Up. RIGHT. NOW." It was sooooo great. I'm still cracking up thinking about his expression.

Maybe lots of people wouldn't see why that comment would be a problem. Marya Hornbacher says that people give us too much credit for having our heads screwed on straight. She is SO right. A lot of the people there I knew from when I was inpatient, and I know they were thinking the same thing I was when they heard those comments, which is something to the effect of, "I should do that too. No more sugar, no more pizza, no more meat. That would be great. It really doesn't make my body feel good, and Eve said we should give our bodies what feels good. Lettuce feels good." The difference is that I may think it, but I know enough not to try it (again).

But I probably only found this so funny because Dr. Crawford scares me half to death. Which is prolly cuz, what he says goes. In the ED world...he is pretty much God. If he says, ok you have to withdraw from school, thats what you have to do or the university will kick you out. And even if you're not in school, he can still sic the fuzz on you if he thinks you aren't 'stable' and you don't want to cooperate.

I personally have only met with him like twice, but both times I was shaking so bad. He didn't threaten me, but knowing that all the other doctors get orders from him made me nervous.

But what I REALLY wanted to do and didn't get the chance to was...well ok, so there's this doctor I can't STAND, Dr. C. (his last name is a pain in the butt to pronounce/spell). It's pretty much common knowledge we don't get along; and to this day I still have bad dreams about him. Pretty sad, huh?

I really wanted to go up to him and be like, "Hey, Dr. C. So I've decided I'm cutting all sugar out of my diet. Whatdja think?" just to piss him off. Cuz as many of you know, he has pissed me (and many others) off plenty of times.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure he's a nice guy (in fact I can think of a good example that does prove that he isn't totally heartless...i think), and he's probably a good doctor, but I'm stubborn, he's stubborn, but there really wasn't anything I was able to do short of jumping over the desk and attacking him. Lol. Thats actually a funny thought.

Sorry. I am messed up. Hehehe.

But anyways, he left too quick. Oh well. I'm a chicken and probably wouldn't have done it.