In which I rant again and also post a naked pic of myself.

So I recently posted on FB this :


Ok my friends. It is time to just stop this business and freaking LOVE our beautiful bodies already. It is breaking my heart the way we (I include myself) beat up and insult ourselves. Repeat after me... my body is strong and beautiful and sexy. Now everytime you say in your head, "I'm fat" replace it with that.
Start-- NOW


So people respond like crazy... I know some of my friends think it was aimed directly at them, and certainly I was thinking of some recent conversations I had with woman... But this is an old refrain.  We hate our bodies.  Too skinny, too fat, too flat , too big.... now I like working out, I like feeling strong and healthy.  and I'm all about goals for strength and good health and good endorphins.
But this self hate.  It is terrible.  It is tragic.  I know woman of every shape and size... and they use terrible, cruel heartless words on themselves.  Words they would never use on anyone else.


Now I'm going to tell you a secret.  I love my body.  I love my rounded tummy.  My I'vehad5kids breasts.  My unruly hair.  My yogabutt. My pretty feet.  My small wrists. My ugly, capable hands.  My strong dimpled thighs.  I love how I smell, both clean and dirty.  I love the c section scar that means my fifth baby didn't die.
I photograph myself nude all the time.  I am unafraid to show those images because as an artist, I can see that they are beautiful and interesting.
I love this body... but I am also afraid to.  Afraid that if I become comfortable and happy in my skin I will become complacent.  That I will get fat and lazy and ugly and not know because I'm happy.
Ok.  How sad and sick is that?
I have DAUGHTERS.  I have a responsibility to treat my self image with joy.  Not disgust.
It's time to change.  It's time to walk confidently in my skin.  I'm ready, even if every day I have to remind myself to push out the cruel thoughts and replace with kind.
It is time.

Because I'm thinking of you

So this week I'm remembering the 1987 Pan Am games... An absolutely terrible year for my mom, sister, brother and I.  It makes me think of this. 

(Hey, don't knock Taylor Swift, this song rocks.)

Wednesday Images

“And she finds it difficult to believe -- that a person would love her even when she isn't trying. Trying to figure out what other people need, trying to be worthy.” 
― Margaret Atwood

Earlier than I should be awake

How is it that my life is always torn between joy and struggle? Or that I'm often laughing while tasting the tears that streak my face? Oh wait. That is life. I'll take it over complacency.

I wrote that as my status on Fb the other day.  You know, it's so true... this day I wanted to put my face down and just cry but I've got three little babies looking at me all day so I have to keep going, all that plaster dust from the weekends activities... and I'm cleaning and playing the same sweet song over and over... trying to not feel the despair of of not enough money, not enough energy and pasta again for dinner...then I look over and on the chair is little Alice Rose, looking for all the world like a Lost Boy, grubby and disheveled, swaying and singing, the sunlite falling full on her funny upturned face and I swing her up into my arms and dance and dance around in the kitchen in the burst of unexpected winter sun.
And the two boys come running in, grab my legs and we sway and we sing and they don't care it I'm out of tune and that the floor is dirty and that it is pasta again.  They are filling up my house with love.

I have 5 kids

Yes, thats right, I have 5 kids.  I can see your eyebrows go up.  I can see all your pre-conceived notions kick in as well as my paranoia, so here we go...
No I'm not Christian. (as a friend once said, Jesus figured into conception only as an expletive)
No I don't home school. (no offense to those who do, but hell, no.)
Yes they all have the same BabyDaddy. (And would it be any of your damned business if they didn't?)
No I don't wear demin skirts, unless the they are short.
I don't have Jesus hair.  I have awesome hair.
Yes I know how IT happened.
No I don't think thats funny.
No I didn't use invitro.  (And would it be any of your damned business if I did?)
Yes I've heard of overpopulation.
Yes I work.  I work and work and work.  Plus I have jobs, too.
Here's what I can tell you.  I love my kids.  I love my husband.  I love our small and untidy house that we are slowly adding to until it becomes The Burrow, I don't mind being compared to the Weasley's.
I like to drink.  I'd like a drink right now.  In fact quite often I would like to be far away from my darling, clever, loud children with a drink.  Drunk in a dark bar. Or having sex.  Or both.  Which could possibly explain the 5 children...
I consider myself lazy, selfish and self centered. And I try to improve on those things although most people don't see that way. Well, they don't see me as lazy, I'm not.  I am most certainly both arrogant and extremely insecure and talk to myself, often in the third person.... probably comes from reading too many novels.  I yell.  I lose my temper.  I love frozen pizza and will happily feed it to my kids.  And while I am very healthy food conscious, I will bribe my kids with Dum-Dum lollys.  No problem.
Being a mother defines almost everything I do.  It defines my day and what I wear, it changed the way I write and photograph and speak and, god knows, sleep.  It is not kittens and hearts and sweet white haired crumpled faced grannies on Mother's Day cards.  It is TigerLove and metaphorical revolvers tucked in the waistband of my skinny jeans(thats right, mama of 5 and I wear skinny jeans), it is wanting to run away to Mexico with either my imaginary love slave Raoul or Jon Stewart  (it varies, depending on my mood), it is anger and fatigue and sheer apathy sometimes.  It is the most remarkable love, love that is that TigerLove, ferocious and destructive.  Love that is the revolver, because yes I will die for them but watch out 'cause I will pull that gun out with a steady hand and steady aim if I need too.  They are mine, my blood, my skin, my heart beat to carry, it was my breath that panted to birth them. They are mine to guide and protect. Mine to accept that with every second they change and move away from me til the day they leave my home... but even then, mine in my heart, mine to protect and love and accept until I die and maybe even after. 
So yeah I have tattoos and yeah, I like sex and wine and say fuck entirely too much.  But I am a good mama.  Maybe I don't look the way you think a mama of 5 should look or act or speak.  But I am a mama of 5 and I kick some serious child rearing ass.