A Hilda Summer

I’ve been wanting to write about my body...

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I’ve been wanting to write about my body.

But I feel a bit uncomfortable about it. Uncomfortable about writing about it, not about my body. Which is why I want to write about it.

I don’t want to go into the whole history of feeling fat and being fat and not wanting to be fat and trying not to be fat because you know it. You’ve probably felt at least some, if not all, of it too. I stopped trying not to be fat a while ago (2020, I think). I got tired of reading about it and I’m mostly tired of talking about it now too.

But there are a few things that helped me and maybe they’ll help you too? I want to share them anyway because otherwise they’re just sitting here in my head and I need to make more space for the horny wicker man movie.

I love Threads so much anyway but the way women have gone FERAL since this trailer dropped has brought me great joy.

Things that have changed how I feel about my body

Illustrated with images of Hilda by Duane Bryers because I can’t get Substack to do numbers or bullet points properly and also because Hilda is fabulous and should actually be number one in this list.

Hilda by Duane Bryers

I suspect I first discovered the Hilda illustrations on Tumblr and I was instantly obsessed. I saved and shared them all. I bought myself a calendar. I looked at them and didn’t think fat, I thought glorious.

Actually that’s not quite true. I thought fat and glorious.

This Rainbow Rowell quote

I was thinking this week about how much my own brain has changed regarding beauty. I went almost 40 years without seeing anyone presented as beautiful unless they met a really narrow standard. I never saw fat women presented as beautiful. I think Tumblr, specifically, has actually healed my brain. It's exposed me to so many types of beauty. And I realized that I have widened my own standards to include myself.

From Why Is Fan Fiction So Powerful? on BuzzFeed

Tumblr - and following fat women on Instagram - had the same effect on me. And that includes Hilda.

The Thought

I remember where it was when I had The Thought.

It wasn’t a special day. I wasn’t doing anything unusual or interesting. The sun was shining. I was walking somewhere with my kids. I looked across the road at a group of people and I suddenly thought, oh, I am inside me looking out.

And I realised for… my whole life? I’d been focusing on people outside of me looking at me. And that day, out of the clear blue sky, I realised that was wrong.

This Instagram post from Ilona Maher

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This Glynnis MacNicol quote

A few years ago, and somewhere in the book, I wrote that I have found the gap between seeing a photo of myself and being able to enjoy it to be about five years. I would like to update that to say it has been significantly reduced to near invisibility by age, self knowledge, and a deep devotion to enjoyment.

From her Instagram

A uniform and no mirror

During the lockdowns I gave up on wired bras, hard pants and heeled shoes. I’m lucky, I know, I work from home and rarely (if ever!) have to get dressed up.

I wear pretty much the same thing every day - a v-neck black t-shirt and black yoga pants.

Can you put away your tight pants, the ones with the punishing waistband? Wear forgiving pants! The world is too hard as it is without letting your pants have an opinion on how you are doing…

~ Anne Lamott

I’ve been buying more things lately, things I think are cute and want to try and so far it’s going well, but I don’t really worry about what to wear anymore because it’s always basically the same. It’s taken away so much stress.

When we moved two years ago, I gave my full-length mirror to one of my sons because there was no space for it in my tiny bedroom. And because I wear the same thing every day I didn’t need it. And I don’t miss it at all. In fact, it’s been one of the best things I’ve done.

I get dressed, I feel good, I go out into the world. Sometimes I see my reflection in a nearby shop window and think cute. Sometimes I see a photo someone has taken and think oh no.

This made me laugh a lot

But it doesn’t ruin my day like it used to. (See above Glynnis MacNicol quote.)

Recently I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror at Crewe train station and thought, Oh! I look just like me!

For most of my life, what I’ve wanted is to be comfortable in my own skin. And I think, at 55, I’m almost there.

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Learn about Duane Bryers here, along with photos of Amy Pence Brown recreating the Hilda poses.