The Body

Which Body is it?

So I do prompt writing with two friends every October, and last year one of us sent “the body.” The obvious response to this prompt is to write about the body I know best, which is my own. No matter how much I adore my children’s bodies, which I made from scratch using my own, once the cords were cut those bodies were theirs.

And no matter how many bodies of the beloved I’ve observed over the years, with beauties I couldn’t stop watching and peculiarities from which I averted my eyes, I will never know anyone’s body like I know my own.

But I would rather talk about my body of work.

The Size of It

My body of work has uncomfortable similarities to my physical body. For one thing, it’s large. It takes up quite a bit of room on my shelves and hard drive. I feel the same urge to apologize for how much space they both require. Katrina sends me esoteric calls for submission because she has an inkling of how much work I have laying around, and she thinks I might have just the thing to send.

There’s a ridiculous amount of body over here between the one I inhabit and the one I’ve produced through almost thirty years of steady tap-tap-tapping on the keys. The time I’ve spent at the computer has probably contributed to the size of my body, come to think of it. The two are enmeshed.

My Embarasment Over It

Next, I’m personally embarrassed by my body, and by how personal some of my work is. Especially the Gentry series, five long and beautiful books that hardly any of my friends have bothered to read. They probably would if I encouraged it, but those books feel too personal, like seeing this body of mine naked. I don’t let that happen. It nearly killed me to appear in front of Elizabeth in a swimsuit when I went on a cruise with her ten years ago.

I feel exactly that exposed when I know a friend is going to read about Gentry, a strange and beautiful character birthed from a dream I had when I was nineteen and a manic burst of creativity that possessed me back in the nineties. It’s like walking around naked.

My body embarrasses me because it’s uneven, beautiful in some places (mostly above the waist) and not-so-beautiful in others (pretty much anything below decks). This parallels my feelings about my Trailer Park book, which I felt fine sharing with people until I submitted it to a previously published indie book contest and received a critique that it was too overwritten. Not only that, but the judge sent a passage that, indeed, was terribly overwritten.

I cringed. Here I was, thinking this part of my body of work was fine to share, admirable, even. And now I fear it’s a total piece of shit that I should hide, like my sad, sad thighs.

The Similarities in it.

My body is what I inhabit in this life, and the book I’ve written that best displays that life is the Iris book. Oh, I did what I could to make hers different from mine, but even so, I did something horrible to myself in writing it. I took all the pain of my second marriage and encoded it throughout. Insult, infidelity, and horrible hurting words issue forth from her husband’s mouth.

She cracks, like I did. She cracks differently—I never let my home fall into chaos, but it’s all there, the hell I endured while trying to keep my marriage together. And her revenges—her night in Hawaii, her geeky neighbor—reveal my unmet longings back then, my lonely body that wanted some love and care and appreciation for what it could do—draw breath, give life, and all the fine stuff in the bedroom.

It gets better as I get older.

Seriously. I am trying my best to be at peace with both my corporeal form, and my body of work. But I still feel exposed by my own work. I told my girls early that when it comes to your body, you get what you get, and you work what you got. I think carefully about how I dress, how I arrange and drape and present myself. I keep myself physically covered.

I’m less careful when I write. My body of work reveals me. I’m learning to be comfortable with this public baring of self, because I don’t seem to have a choice in the matter. It’s the only way I know how to write.