Pretty

http://broadist.tumblr.com/post/6754399892/you-dont-have-to-be-pretty-you-dont-owe#notes

Really love this quote.  It begins - "You don't have to be pretty - you don't owe prettiness to anyone..." 

I'd never realised, till very lately, the actual ugly oppressive weight of the word pretty. I thought, when I first found the size acceptance movement and encountered my very first fat admirers, that I had found home.  The longer I stayed and played and read and learned though the more and more I saw that this was a space that, again, came with some very ugly hypocrisy.  Drama about feeders and feedees aside, about sexual fetish, about waste and desperation and actual mental illness and social dysfunction aside, the sexual fatosphere is where I learnt absolutely the ugly lessons of 'Pretty.' 

For years I knew pretty was not me.  I was short and fat and very dark and this was not at all conceivably pretty.  In the sexual fatosphere those lessons were, ironically, even more deeply ingrained. In the fat world you can be the wrong kind of fat.  If you fat is not attached to your boobs and bum its the 'wrong' kind of fat.  Fat girls who are not hourglass or pear shaped are routinely told my 'fat admirers' to try to lose weight.  If you have a fat belly you are called an ugly blob, misshapen, ugly - all this within the fat movement.  It was almost funny to find that I had run from a space I thought I was rejected to one where again I did not measure up.  I often wander if I was light skinned, hour glassed and just generally less loud mouthed if I would keep swallowing the lies of pretty - if they wouldn't sting as badly because I fit.  I can't know so I move forward with what I have, with what I've seen and I've learnt.  What a crazy ramble lol! This youtube vid expresses this far better than I have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0

FLICKR

I'm finally getting my flickr account sorted and turned into something I'm actually not ashamed to have online.  I'm also very seriously contemplating changing the name of my photography company.  I love Fierce Fotography but there are a number of Fierce Fotography's out there - its not exactly original.  Something I've been mulling over for a while and now that I'm ready to take this business to the next level I'm thinking a change in name would be appropriate.  Not sure to what though.  Its funny how crazy I was about the name to begin with.  There isn't another Fierce registered in South Africa and it makes me happy...we'll see - just weighing where I want to be going with all of this.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tauslair/

I'm feeling a great deal of focus.  Have been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster recently.  That looming 3-0 man.  I don't have a problem with getting older - what terrified me is how quickly time just zooms by and how much I still desperately want to do and achieve and feel and enjoy in this life.

When I was 18 I told myself that I would have my first baby at 34.  I was very, very shaken when I realised that 34 is right around the corner and I am in no way, shape or form ready to have children.  I'm still barely able to take care of myself, still such an emotional and mental mess, that the thought of caring for another life fills my veins with ice.  I want babies - I do - but not now and its scares me to contemplate exactly when I'll feel ready because I don't think I ever will.

Its a time of epic growth for me again - and I'm savoring it but also a little weary of the constant growing pains.  I figure if I keep putting my faith in God, trusting that he knows the path he wants for me, I can't go too badly wrong.

Soaking up the Love

The last post was gloomy and I cannot leave it at that because there is goodness too – so much joy in my life.  I cannot end leave this blog just lost in anger.  I’ve been home for 3 weeks spending time with my niece and nephew and my parents and it has been amazing.  My babies are so beautiful.  There is pure joy in the spirits of children and I’ve soaked up their happiness and their generous love and I am so thankful – so, so thankful – to have the family I have and the love I have in my life.  And now for pictures!!! :D

May

May was the month from hell. School was madness, a dozen essays, thesis proposal and presentations all due at one brain crunching time and work...well I’m not going to say much about that.  Work is status quo – a quo I’m working very, very hard to change as soon as possible. 

I was exhausted just about every day, couldn’t sleep and everything hurt – my body, my mind.  Sometimes I felt like my soul was too full of pain and hope and anger – like I could barely put thoughts together that weren’t tinged with resentment and urgency and frustration.  I’m still finding equilibrium, still sort of staggering back to a happier space.   This course on Gender and Transformation has been...life changing.  This is no exaggeration – literally life changing.  Sometimes I feel like I put a part of myself to sleep years ago, when I realized just how hard life is – and that part of me, that dormant part of Nomonde, has just shaken awake and I’m just feeling all these things.  The conversations I’m having, the books I’m reading, the course work, all of it is tearing off the bandages I’d wrapped myself in.  I am numb no more, blind no more, but now I can no longer pretend not to see the constant injustice of the society we live in and the endless layers of oppression that mire us in ugliness.

I’m in a dark place right now – very dark.  I’ll write more lucidly about how I feel about all of this when it doesn’t feel so close, when it’s not suffocating me.