Thursday, April 2, 2009

Star Jones

It has been snowing for ten days off and on. I have quit watching the weather. None of the locals pay any attention to it. After two and half years I know why. There is only so much you can know about snow. Either it is snowing or it isn't. Phooey.

Did anyone else watch Star Jones on Oprah? Wow what an interview. This interview strengthened my desire to find out who I am without my fat enclosure. The thin Star who was on Oprah was an entirely different woman from the fat Star of the View. Quieter. Calmer. Less arrogant. No longer the life of the party. Nicer.

In our country fat impinges on our basic personality structures. Who can daily live with prejudice and not be changed by it. We adapt to the hatred by shutting down some parts of our personalities and overplaying other parts. It is hard to just be ourselves. Frequently the the personality adaptations are unconscious. We don't even know who we might be without our cocoon. This happened to me. I am convinced part of my regain is due to an incident in the dressing room of Coldwater Creek.

I went in to buy a skirt two years ago. I was by myself. Husband was shopping on his own and I was supposed to meet up with him in half an hour. I was rushed. I grabbed some denim skirts and some black skirts. Gathered skirts on an elastic band. Nothing special in the lot. I was jumping in and out of them and not liking anything when a sale's clerk offered to help me. This should be a scream I thought and I said yes to get her to leave me alone. She arrived with an armful of fluted knee length skirts with waist bands, and in sizes and colors I did not wear. I wear only long dark colored elastic waist skirts. I tried on the brown herringbone. I had no hips. My belly looked flatter and my short stubby legs looked longer and thinner. "What you need is a turtleneck and a vest to go with that" said the clerk and off she rushed. I put on the camel colored cashmere turtleneck and the short little tapestry vest. "All you need now are some brown knee high boots and you're set she said." I felt the ground give way beneath me. Who was this stylish matron with the ash blond bob and the bemused expression? I could not move. I did not even know how to make this creature walk. I have never felt so at a loss in my life. I took the clothes off and ran from the dressing room. When I met up with my husband we went out to lunch and I had pasta and cheesecake. I've been overeating ever since.

I know how to navigate as a fat person. I am totally lost at sea as a thinner woman. Star talked about how slow was the learning process to be a normal sized person after being fat her whole life. She said she sometimes still feels like a three hundred pound woman. She said she lost a whole 'nother person. The person she knew. She was then left with this stranger in her skin who had to function in the world as though nothing much had happened. Like living with amnesia I thought. Much food for thought in this story. I hope Oprah has her on again.

Mark calls the new diet my "rabbit food revenge." We had pumpkin soup and cream cheese, walnut and pimento sandwiches for lunch. The soup was my own creation. Pumpkin, soy milk, onions, garlic, cinnamon, curry, molasses and applesauce. Was creamy and good. I mixed walnuts, curry, and pimentos in the low fat cream cheese and served it on slices of Ezekiel bread spread with avocado and topped with cucumber slices and spinach leaves. Mark said he hates curry. sigh

I am going to solider on. Tomorrow it will be mushroom barley soup and veggy laden Swiss cheese sand. I am looking forward to it. Take care of yourselves. Love Bea

17 comments:

Susan said...

She said she lost a whole 'nother person. The person she knew. She was then left with this stranger in her skin who had to function in the world as though nothing much had happened.

Ouch! I can relate to that. Do you think it's odd that our society encourages us to lose weight, but offers so little support when we do? After I lost weight, I sometimes didn't recognise myself in the mirror. And *twice* my husband didn't recognise me in the street.

I'm sorry about your change-room freak-out. Yet I can relate to that too.

Food for thought - no pun intended!

Cindy said...

Hey that food sounds tastey. I want to come eat with you in the snow. I TOTALLY relate to your dressing room story. I hit a point last summer where I felt not myself. When the thin women started complimenting my "thin" I don't know if it is why I put back on ten of the pounds but I never got used to my body at that size. Of course I did not stay there very long. I would like to go back once more and see how I feel. Maybe just five or eight pounds. I still can't really describe what the deal was. I feel more myself now. Whoever that is...hee hee hee.

Lori G. said...

I can believe what Star Jones and I've been there. I like what Susan said about society not offering support after we've lost it. Perhaps the consensus is that all we ever had to do was "stop eating so much."

I also think another reason for Star Jones' change in personality is that she got fired, got divorced and none of this had to do with her weight (or at least the big picture of why these things happened).

I bet you looked beautiful in the dressing room and that in itself probably scared you to death. The question -- what is real and who is the real Bea?

denise said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
denise said...

Sorry - messed up my first post and removed it...

Interesting post on Star Jones. At lunch with a friend this weekend we were discussing the Star Jones interview and we both felt that she seemed "put on" - as though she was trying to sell the audience on this new, quiet Star. In fact, my friend said she honestly thought she seemed drugged. We also felt she said talked alot without saying much.

Of course, we're not big Star fans, so I'm sure that colored our thinking as well.

But what you say puts a new and valid spin on it, and I totally agree with your observations about how different you feel when you lose weight and how people who haven't experienced it can't understand it. Unfortunately, now I'm experiencing the how-different-you-feel-when-you-gain-it-all-back-and-then-some feelings. :-( All in all I'd rather be dealing with the other stuff!

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