bodies and change.
I think one of the themes for this year is going to be reconciliation with my body. We don’t have the best relationship right now; it doesn’t like the cheap fuel I substitute for meals at times, and desk job. I don’t like that it has become weak, damaged and soft.
Some of this is fixable — more yoga, more gym, less caffeine.
Some of it I just need to get used to.
The body I had at 30 isn’t coming back, and while I am all about the HAES, it has become clear to me that part of the reason my photography has gone all to hell is that my most convenient subject – me – isn’t something I feel comfortable shooting anymore, not so much for the shooting but the inevitable editing. The Happy Pill Project was a long time ago, now, but when I try to put together figure-based work, that is the era I still source from; and I have lost too much confidence, especially after the failures of my sofobomo project, to try working with someone else.
I am going to try and address some of that by doing a portrait session with a friend who works from the philosophy of “you’re already beautiful, let’s just show it” which I think will be fun, and a lot less …. performative? than Modeling as part of the process of making Art, even though I still want to do that again. And yeah, doing the weightlifting should help, too, because even before it starts to change how your body looks, there is an emboldening experience to committing acts of strength.
My head is clearer, and quieter, which is a goodness.
But my eyes… I realized today that I can now easily see the cataract in the mirror. The idea of putting off surgery until the improved lenses are available, while logically sound, is becoming emotionally less appealing, even though eye surgery still terrifies me. And since visual creation is what I do for both Work and Fun, it is particularly… fraught. I am trying to open up my ideas about art to things that are less sharp and precise, but there are so many pieces in my head which require precise execution that I still want to make. Imprecise is Not an option professionally, although I do have the Photoshop skills already to compensate for the “dreamy glow” my left eye imposes upon the world.
I am beginning to feel physically old, and I am not ready for that.
