Have you ever read a blog post that just resonates with you, stays with you, creeping back into your thoughts even days after having read it? This past week I keep hearing echos of this post by Alex of Late Enough over at the Blogger Body Calendar. Oh yeah, she had anorexia and I had bulimia, but one phrase that she wrote rocked me to the core, as I have thought it and refused it many times, silly to think I might be the only one. It was:
I want to take up space today.
Simple enough right? And yet I have tried NOT to take up space for so long, which is a tough feat for someone as LOUD and ACTORY as I. In fact I was too loud, too funny, too obnoxious…too everything and even though I never managed to silence my voice ,I tried like crazy to physically take up no space. To dissapear. And I failed, time and again. This phrase: TAKE UP SPACE has been spoken to me by therapists, doctors and especially acting teachers. The most amazing teacher I ever had, more than a teacher to me, passed away this week. Again, another man I thought would live forever, is gone. He always encouraged me to TAKE MY SPACE and frequently yelled at me to stop apologizing for being alive. Perhaps this blog is a fight against being invisible in such a large and quickly moving world. Since I’m not performing on a regular basis at the moment perhaps this blog is my very own barbaric yawp above the rooftops saying I am still here!
Tennessee Williams wrote a piece entitled Talk to Me Like The Rain and Let Me Listen, I’ve always wanted to perform this piece and it is rarely done but again…the resonance that I am not the only person to ever try to take up as little space as possible, longing to dissapear and float away.
“I’ll run my hands down my body and feel how amazingly light and thin I have grown. Oh, my, how thin I will be. Almost transparent. Not hardly real any more. Then I will realize, I will know, sort of dimly, that I have been staying on here in this little hotel, without any — social connections, responsibilities, anxieties or disturbances of any kind — for just about fifty years. Half a century. Practically a lifetime. I won’t even remember the names of the people I knew before I came here nor how it feels to be someone waiting for someone that — may not come … Then I will know — looking in the mirror — the first time has come for me to walk out alone once more on the esplanade with the strong wind beating on me, the white clean wind that blows from the edge of the world, from even further than that, from the cool outer edges of space, from even beyond whatever there is beyond the edges of space … Then I’ll go out and walk on the esplanade. I’ll walk alone and be blown thinner and thinner. And thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner! Till finally I won’t have any body at all, and the wind picks me up in its cool white arms forever, and takes me away”
This morning all of our forks were in the dishwasher. I reached in the very back of the silverware drawer and pulled out something from my husband’s childhood…and mine as well. A small metal children’s fork with Snoopy on the handle. Talk about being taken back in time! I haven’t thought about that fork in forever, who thinks about a fork? But instantly I was five and eating Spaghettio’ s happily having not made the connection that food is bad and being big, in anyway, is bad. A time when celebrating your acheivements is a good thing, {As The Boss says “Yay Baby! Baby did it!”} before it is beaten out of you by mockery and shame. I watched The Boss chomping away at his cold egg whites {gross. one day he will eat them at least warm, right} as my mother must have watched me and my mother in law watched TOTT using that very same fork and I thought I love the way he takes up space.
Yesterday I took him to Story Hour and while other children sat in the circle, my child marched right up on stage and sat next to the woman reading the story. Taking his space.
Sometimes, I think The Boss teaches me far more than I teach him.
Today, I want to take up space. How about you?
Absolutely beautiful.
This entry brought me to tears. I know I tell you on twitter all the time, but your blog is so great. I lost a teacher in high school and he was one of those teachers that touched your life. We never saw him get angry with students, but he talked to you calmly even if you did something wrong. There are so many moments when I could have been making noise, but chose to sit back and be quiet. I need to learn how to take up space and not be afraid.
I’m so sorry you lost a teacher who touched your life so. This retired educator is now just an Ozarks farm chick but I now how much a good teacher can change lives.
Your little handsome fella is so precious! Ya just gotta love a guy who is bold enough to take the space made just for him!
From the happy hills and hollers of the Missouri Pondeorsa, ya’ll have wonderfully blessed day!!!
oh mama… this one had me reaching for the kleenex.
xo!
What a freaking fantastic post! You just wrote it so perfectly and beautifully. I’m sorry for your loss this week. But I’m happy for the lessons learned.
And once again, I fall a little more in love with your Max. I think Max’s of the world are just special!
You made me cry. It’s hard to think about our parents watch us suffer now that I am a parent.
So continue to take up space my friend!
PS. I’m so honored to have connected with you.
beautiful
Beautiful, beautiful post
I have never heard this saying before but it completely and totally resonated with me. I have a recurring “vision” (dream, thought, whatever) that keeps coming to me. It’s me laying on the ground, dirt and all, up in the mountains with my arms spread wide open “taking up space”. Ive battled being small and unnoticeable most of my life and always wanting to hide that the thought of spreading my arms wide open makes me very happy.
Thank you so much for sharing and for making me come to a few realizations. A very inspired post, indeed.
I’m so sorry about your teacher that passed away. Grief sucks. My thoughts are with you.
How profound! In the circle of connectedness, I think your words are going to resonate with me as well. It’s helping me understand a little bit what is going on in the head of my anorexic teen. It makes so much more sense now!
We don’t stop growing up when we think we’ve grown up and had children. I think becoming parent puts us on the road of really growing up, growing out of ourselves, and understanding this thing called life a little more deeply.
So sorry to hear about another death too. {{HUGS}}
Thank you so much for sharing this. It is so true how much our kiddos can teach us – As long as we take a moment from this crazy life and really pay attention. Really appreciate why we are here. I need to concentrate on that more.
An amazing post. I would say that here, in this post, You Took Your Space. And made many more of us think about taking ours. Thank you. I think that I am going to wake in the morning, thinking about my own barbaric yawp and how I can live with enthusiasm and ownership, like my kidlets do.
That was so beautiful—you are getting so good at this blogging Ms Steph
Well put! I have always struggled with “taking up space” as you so perfectly put it. I usually just say I’m the invisible woman – I can be in a group of people talking and interject a comment and no one hears me – it’s not as if they look at me then look away – seriously no one hears me. I don’t whisper either – it use to be very unnerving. Now I find it sometimes amusing and it allows me to be far more observant. Luckily my 3 kids seem to emulate their dad and like your little man know how to Take up Space! Really well written – thanks for sharing!
This is a revelation among revelations…Thank you for enlightening me and making me think! Today I am going to take up space!