I know that this statement seems contradictory, so I suppose the first thing I should do is explain where this presumably oxymoronic (or perhaps simply “moronic”?) idea came from. Obviously, the question of weightiness has played a recurring role in my adult life, because a) I am a woman, and b) I have borne children. The “c” that goes with this “a” and this “b” is, of course, that I have been on diets. I have been on all of them. Just call me the “target demographic” of the weight-loss industry. After having given birth to a half-dozen not-so-tiny human beings over the course of fifteen years, I think I can safely say that I know the drill. I know what is expected “after the baby”; Low-fat versus low-carb, aerobics versus yoga, Pilates versus lap-band surgery, the beckoning call of the “skinny jeans” versus a frazzled new (and new again) mother’s precarious state of mind.
Somewhere between kid number five and kid number six, I had a brief encounter with common sense and decided to ditch all the diets and desperate ideas, deprive myself of nothing, and just start walking every day. The goal was not even to lose weight, just to clear my head a little and find a way to justify listening to as many audio books as possible. A surprising thing came out of this experience. I started to feel less precarious about my mental state. I really did not notice whether or not I was losing pounds, only that I could see more clearly, and a little further, down the previously foggy road ahead. And I felt stronger. Physically, spiritually, and emotionally stronger.
During this time, I was having a conversation with a friend who jokingly commented about being too cool to hang out with people who were not physically fit. My response to this was, “Whatever, I am in great shape under all this fat!” This comment caused my friend to laugh hysterically. Because it was such a ludicrous comment. And because it was funny. I remember making a mental note to myself at the time that this would make a good title. For exactly what, I did not know. I knew it could generate a laugh, and that there must be some truth to it on some level, or I would not have thought to say it. So. Into my hoarder’s paradise of a brain the idea went, along with so many other as-yet-unrealized (and possibly unrecoverable) grand ideas I have tripped over along the way. But this one kept rising to the top, briefly jogging my memory, then returning to the depths once more.
Not long after this, I became pregnant with my sixth and final contribution to the earth’s population, and in the process managed to bury myself once more, both literally and figuratively. At the same time, my always shifting and shaky marriage was starting to crumble under the strain, finally giving out altogether when my youngest child was seven years old. In the five years since divorce, as I have attempted to achieve some level of stability for my kids and myself, I have often felt like I was trapped inside a giant chunk of immovable stone, unable to turn my head in any direction, to hope, or even to breathe. I kept having this recurring image from my college art history class, of myself as one of those unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo, knowing there was something more under the rock that was beautiful and useful, perhaps even valuable, if I could just find a way to get it out.
With my mind continually churning through ideas about how to accomplish this, that old idea about “being in great shape under the fat” started to surface more and more often. As I began gaining enough strength, by small degrees, to finally start moving forward, the truth of that supposedly contradictory statement began to become clear to me.
In the course of my many attempts to fight off the excess fat over the years, I learned a few things about weight-lifting that stuck with me; In order to build up muscle, you first have to break it down, through exertion, to the point of exhaustion. Between these sessions of breaking down the muscle tissue, you have to give it time to rest and rebuild, and when it does, it becomes stronger and able to lift and carry more weight. This was one of those concepts I knew because I had heard it repeated so many times, yet I felt like a failure because I was not so great at exercising it by getting to the gym to actually lift weights. I am not sure exactly when the realization sunk in that I was gaining strength simply by virtue of lifting and carrying the weight that was already on me. Literally, figuratively, and repeatedly. I actually was in great shape under all that fat.
When that idea finally planted itself firmly in my mind and heart, I knew what I needed to write about. I was able to pluck that one aging idea out of the swirling mass of accumulated knowledge in my brain, polish it up, and fix it firmly in the foreground. Once I did this, it became easier to recognize some of those other things rolling around in my head that I know to be true. This is where the idea for this blog came from, and I hope to shape these thoughts into book form in the not-too-distant future. The idea is that this process will make space in my brain for all of the new knowledge I plan to accumulate in the second half of my century on this planet. That’s right. I said “my century”. I fully intend to write a sequel to this book in another fifty years.
As I have given more thought to that feeling of being trapped in solid and unforgiving rock, like one of Michelangelo’s unfinished masterpieces, it has occurred to me that many of those pieces are just as famous and considered to be just as valuable as the ones that he did finish. They are in museums, too. In fact, when I went back and studied some of these statues again, they struck me as almost being more breathtaking than the polished and refined versions. They certainly stirred up more emotion in me. The passion of the struggle and the perfection of the parts that have managed to emerge, in stark contrast to the rock, represent the reality of the struggle that we all face each day. And they are in great shape under all that rock.
Perhaps it was a conscious decision on the part of Michelangelo to leave some of them unfinished. Perhaps it was a conscious decision on the part of the original Master to leave some of us unfinished. Perhaps they both saw the full value of the individual work in its unfinished form, and knew that it would have just as much intrinsic value as the works that were fully polished and refined.
I, for one, certainly don’t feel that I am fully polished and refined yet. Not by any stretch of my now slightly less-cluttered imagination. But because I know that the Master sees my full value, regardless of how much or how little of me has managed to emerge thus far, I can say with confidence that I am in great shape under all this weight I have yet to shed. And I am grateful for the opportunity to carry it, as far as I need to carry it.
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