Your body is your temple

One Sunday afternoon in 1994, my dad came to pick me up at my mom’s place. Funny enough, kids of divorced families tend to have a double residency and plenty of clothes, toys and books at both locations. That was not my case. I have always lived with my mom and barely spent a full weekend with my father in the past fifteen years. But this is not the point of this story.

Our plan was a movie & pizza night, which I was finding extremely enjoyable and refreshing as it would not force me to go through any serious daughter-father conversation for longer than five slices of food.

That night we watched Wolf, with Jack Nicholson. The theatre was packed and I remember deciding not to buy popcorn due to the eternal line at the bar. My father looked at me with a funny disappointed look.

After the movie, we went to a local, tiny pizzeria out of the city centre. We used to love that place because they were serving a special “bomb” pizza with sausage, onion and mushrooms on a margherita base. Very heavy, tasty and oily, it would leave you with the satisfactory feeling of having eaten too much and too fast. Nothing better for a Sunday night.

We sat at the usual table in the corner and I started playing with toothpicks, scratching the white and red paper tablecloth. The owner of the place, a mid-50, always grumpy, big-belly man from Napoli, joined us sitting at the table to take the order.

“The usual one”, my father giggled.

“A plain margherita for me, please”, I murmured, surprising the audience.

My father and I ate quietly, chitchatting about school, horses and possible summer holidays. No big topic was thrown on the table until the check came. At that point, my dad gave me my weekly allowance – good times – and looked at me straight in the eyes.

“You know, sometimes we don’t like ourselves… or, better said, the reflection of our bodies in the mirror. Well, I’d like you to know that, if that’s the case, we will find a remedy. But the most important thing is that you never stop eating properly.”

My first reaction was a timid smile and a subtle sure.

Recompiling moments of my past, I recall grey days of hating my image and my lines, my Mediterranean, although fit, body and the idea of these curves and their expansion. Many times I thought about sickening myself to escape the monster of fatness. Adolescence is a white weapon with no blade but the power to drown you in depression and never-ending questioning. Never, and I say never, I got to stop eating for more than six hours and a great part of this self-awareness has to be thanked to those words casually thrown on the paper tablecloth by my dad, in 1994.

Youngsters are insecure by nature. Doubts are part of their blood and low protection is provided by the outer world. The shell of security and consciousness has to be built day by day with the great help and cooperation of parents’ wisdom. My life has been marked by the unconditional love I was ensured, no matter which pizza I’d decide to eat.

No matter where you are now, how busy your life is and how hectic these times appear, never forget this fundamental rule. These are times when the power of celluloid is stronger than ever and what we are forced to see everyday is everything but the truth.
 
A very close friend of mine is a professional photographer and a few months ago we had fun taking pictures in his stunning studio. One of the shots was sent to me right after that afternoon and I noticed how skinny my figure looked. Couldn’t help but being surprised, I gave him a call and all he had to say was “Photoshop power!” I then managed to get closer to the mirror and, in spite of the fact that my curves were definitely more accentuated in real life, I smiled at myself and thought “not too bad, after all.”
 
S. Valentine has just left us and after my overview on relationships, I thought about Self Love and found out that it was a feeling tickling me deep inside.
 
My body is my temple and nothing counts more than that. I have recently got in my hands an inspiring book that wisely said: “Imagine your body as a ship that has to cross the ocean of life. If you don’t take care of its maintenance properly, you will find yourself drowning long before you are able to reach the outmost shore.”
 
Love yourself 365…. And never stop eating pizza, reminding yourself to have a good run the day after, and a smile at that apparently-evil mirror.

–

Arianna lives with her cat, Nietzsche, and some friends in sunny Barcelona.Life brought her to live in New York, Barcelona and who knows what is next. She considers herself a wannabe writer in spite of her moody relationship with her unpublished novel.