Hi!!
Sorry I’ve been MIA. Lots of exciting things are happening, but I’m not sure if I can share them yet. Instead, here’s this:
What I thought about this week
It’s Monday. Oscar and I are commuting home together on the train. Oscar says idly, “you look good” from across the isle and takes a picture. He immediately texts it to me and my phone lights up.
It’s one of those pictures where you look at yourself and want to recoil into your own skin. One where you feel, whether it’s true or not, like a toad. After a moment, I make the quick decision to delete the picture. I feel instant relief.
I realize being alive in general comes with — occasionally — disliking your body. I hate to say it. But I’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t had a weird relationship with food, or hasn’t looked in the mirror and hated something they saw. No matter size or build. It’s an exhausting experience.
Growing up, I was chubby. Not skinny, not fat, but I always had a tummy. I wasn’t too bothered by it. I loved pasta — buttered noodles and mac and cheese topped the list. I remember dance classes, especially ballet class. My leotard and tights didn’t exactly fit like the other girls who had graceful thin arms and flat stomachs. I would suck in and look in the mirror, but no matter how much I did there was always a little roll where my tights squeezed my tummy.
Around eighth grade, I went to summer camp as a newly minted vegetarian. I arrived to find that whoever had taken over as camp cook that year had an affinity for putting meat in every dish imaginable. For vegetarians, there was a lackluster table off to the side with ingredients to make PB&J sandwiches. I had no choice but to survive off of PB&J’s for 10 days straight. I wouldn’t recommend that diet, but I did lose probably 5-7 pounds. My appetite shrank that summer. I returned to school in the fall having lost about 15-20 pounds. I received lots of compliments from other students (and weirdly, from teachers). I kept the weight off throughout most of high school, but started gaining it back in college. Since then, my weight has fluctuated and increased.
That said, most of the time I feel generally attractive. I like who I am. But as I age and my relationship with my body evolves, I find myself reflecting and relating to the precocious, chubby young characters in pop culture I knew growing up. I think about them with compassion. The first that comes to mind is Olive, from the film, ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’
While the film touches on many themes, it does an especially good job of making American beauty standards look completely ridiculous. After all, what’s more ridiculous than a child beauty pageant? Watching the movie, we can’t help but hate the idea of making little girls dress up like women. The connection between youth and sexuality is clearly gross. Instead, we’re left cheering for the gap-toothed, slightly overweight Olive as she skips around the stage to “Superfreak” in the final scene. I often think of one of the character’s, Dwayne’s, more cliche lines — “Do what you love, and fuck all the rest.” While it’s hard to untangle ourselves from what we feel our bodies should be, it’s worth it. I’d be perfectly happy as Olive, and not one of the other girls at the pageant.
Another equally endearing scene is this one, from the movie ‘School of Rock:’
In it, Jack Black speaks with a student who is nervous to sing on stage because she’s fat. He tells her that ultimately weight is irrelevant; she’s got something else: talent. He compares her to another great singer, Aretha Franklin, who is a big lady — but when she sings people want to “PARTY WITH ARETHA!” He admits he struggles with weight too. When the student asks why he doesn’t go on a diet, he responds plainly, “Because I like to eat.”
Both of these characters have done the hard work of liking themselves outside of how they were taught they should look/feel/be. They’re dimensional and weird and interesting and that’s what is so great about them. They bring a lot to the table. Imagine how much the movies would suck if they only revolved around conventionally attractive characters who hadn’t done that work.
My college roommate, Haley, had a theory that there are two kinds of people: you’re either pointy or you’re squishy. She was talking about personality. You’re either rigid, or you’re soft. I remember telling an employer once that I thought my strength was my ability to empathize. They told me to “find another word because that wasn’t really a strength I should highlight.”
They were wrong, though. The older I get, the more I want to lean into that softness, that squish. I don’t want to wait to arrive at some version of myself that I like. I look back on the little girl in dance class sucking in her tummy and I feel tender toward her. I am her, and she’ll always be me.
What I drank this week
Ampeleia ‘Unlitro’ Red Blend, Tuscany, Italy 2020 $21
An absolute banger for $21. Brought this over to a friend’s house who doesn’t typically drink wine. Their first remark was, “This wine is delicious.” You heard it here first, folks. If you couldn’t guess from the name, this is a liter of unfiltered, unfined, biodynamic wine. It’s a blend of Carignan and Grenache from Tuscany. It’s aged in cement, so you won’t find many secondary tasting notes — it’s mostly pure red fruit. The wine is made by a group of young people (led by Marco Tait) in a medieval Italian town. Pretty cool, right? We got it from the shop Altogether Now in Chicago (Chicago people go give them some love).
COS Frappato, Sicily, Italy 2020 $30ish
Please excuse this horrible picture. A friend and I were texting about this producer, COS, and it inspired me to pick up a bottle of their Frappato when I was at the wine shop (another liter bottle). Frappato is a notoriously light red that’s highly perfumed and typically an island wine — coming from the volcanic island of Sicily, right off the boot of Italy. If you’re into wine and like Beajoulais from France, I suggest you give this a try.
A little bit more about the producer:
Giusto Occhipinti of COS is one of the most critical names in Italy. COS was founded by three friends to make traditional wine with respect for the place the grapes are grown. During their first harvest in 1980, they were the youngest wine producers in Italy. The acronym of their three last names forms “COS.” They were early adopters to Biodynamic farming, starting a movement on the island, which are still golden standards. The friends are hard workers, using an old winery given to them by a family friend and opting to use terracotta vases for aging, a completely neutral vessel. Sicily has just one DOCG—Cerasuolo di Vittoria; the friends were the first winery to bottle a DOCG wine in Sicily. COS is located in Vittoria, the farthest tip of southeastern Sicily. The area recalls that of Africa, with its climate and land of red, ochre, and yellow tones.
This Frappato comes from their estate vineyards in Vittoria from red clay soils. Fermentation and ageing is all done in cement with three months aging in the bottle before its release.
What I liked this week
An article about Anthony Bourdain by Helen Rosner for the New Yorker that does a good job exploring his complicated humanity—
Getting a haircut from my GIRL (we all have that one incredible stylist / barber) who I haven’t seen in literal years:
Inside by Bo Burnham, which I watched weeks ago but have been, like the rest of the internet, unable to stop singing/quoting. If for some reason you haven’t seen it (how?) it’s a descent into madness that is relatable, hilarious, genius, and messed up. Yeah, I have no subversive take on it. It’s really good. You gotta see it.
Great point:
A 2019 profile on the art of Chilean native Cecilia Vicuña. ‘Consciousness is the Art’ for the New York Times.
This adorable baby who is dressed like an old man:
Thanks y’all for reading and having patience with me. It’s feeling like this may have to be a biweekly newsletter until my life settles down. I’ll keep you posted.
Until next time!! <3
Cheers,
Kate
Another well-written contemporary exploration that alternately made me smile, a bit sad, and as always, proud of your empathy and insights, which had me reflecting on my similar childhood experiences as a "chubby kid" who despised having to shop for clothes in size "Husky" at Sears.....
Yassss stay steady squishy!!