Life After Recovery

Love Your Body: Calling All Artists!

Dear Friends-

I recently received this inspiring announcement about an event now in the works for next October in North Carolina. If you are an artist, you may want to submit some work for the show. If you live anywhere near Winston-Salem, you will surely want to attend the celebration.

Read on,

Aimee

 

Submit work for the Love Your Body show, a community art exhibition celebrating body diversity. I am collecting art (visual, written, or performance/film) that explores making peace with the body. Art will be accepted until September 25 ^th and can be submitted via post or email  if the artist is not local. The show will be on display at

Salem College's South Corridor Gallery

(Winston-Salem, NC) 

from October 8 ^th through November 5^th 2007

There is no entry fee. Please contact Sara at sayates2@gmail.com or (336)-705-4751 for more information!

 

My name is Sara, and I am hoping that you might be interested in an event that I am organizing entitled "Love Your Body"-- visual, written, and performance art that thoughtfully explores the idea of making peace with the body. The art will be on display in Salem College's Fine Arts Center from October 8 ^th- November 4^th, 2007. The written work will be compiled into booklets that viewers can take away from the show, and the performances will take place on the evening of October 26 ^th.

Additionally, Dr. Anita Johnston, author of "Eating in the Light of the Moon", will be speaking about identifying your hunger/ using metaphor to heal the relationship with the body (Oct. 26), hosting an informal discussion group about making peace with the body(Oct 26), and leading a professional training workshop entitled "Eating Disorders as Messengers of the Soul" (Oct 27).

I have struggled with anorexia for several years As I continue to move deeper into recovery, I find myself amazed by the healing and transforming power of art. I decided to organize the "Love Your Body" show in response to the overwhelmingly painful relationship so many people (eating disordered or not) in my community seem to have with their bodies. My hope is that participants will find a bit of healing through the invitation to share their stories, and that viewers will feel encouraged to have a compassionate relationship with their bodies. Although the majority of the submissions I've received deal with recovery from eating disorders, other participants have explored the way that surviving illness or abuse, living with a disability, or experiences with aging or sexuality have transformed their relationship with their bodies. It is rather remarkable how unifying the topic of "the body" can be and how central the body is to a variety of healing processes.

I am so heartened by the response I've received thus far to the "Love Your Body" show. Not only is the interest in healing greater than I had imagined, but also the rich variety and talent of the participants is flooring. (I've received formal figure studies carefully painted on canvas as well as interest from local body painters who paint intricate, spiritual designs directly on the skin of their nude models. Belly dancers are scheduled to dance in the performance event, and I've received written work from as far away as California). The will to heal, to live, and to connect that is evident in the work of these inspiring individuals makes me feel so hopeful and confident in human resilience.

Sara at sayates2@gmail.com

WE DO NOT HAVE TO BECOME "US"!

Through one of those involuntary subscription switch-and-baits that seem to occur with increasing frequency lately, Us magazine started showing up in my mailbox last month. For the first few weeks I tossed it directly into the trash. Each cover, it seemed, featured an alarming photograph of some starlet over a caption of feigned concern: “Is she too thin?” Inside, anonymous copywriters speculated about whether Paris or Britney or Jen had put on or taken off weight, looked frumpy, or had gotten dumped, hitched, or arrested. But as the issues kept coming I couldn’t help wonder what exactly kept them coming.

Us, of course, is a publicist’s dream machine. Celebrities may moan about paparazzi, but those candid photos seem to prove that even Julia Roberts and Carmen Diaz lug groceries just like the rest of “us.” And the more we identify with the stars, the more attention we’ll pay to their upcoming movies, shows, or CDs.

Here’s the thing, though: Men make up half the entertainment audience – and play about 75% of the speaking roles in movies, yet they are clearly not “Us.” In my current issue, photographs of female celebs outnumber men by a ratio of about 20 to 1.   And the ads, mostly for cosmetics and diet products, are exclusively aimed at women. So this is a magazine about women for women that pretends celebrity power belongs to women just like “us.”

Really, the “stars” in the photographs have nothing like the power that Us implies by showcasing them. And their lives, whether at, above, or below their target weights, have little in common with that of a reader who, say, works ten hours a day in a factory or is a stay-at-home mom. Yet millions of women ogle these pages every week, comparing their marriages, their mothers, their children, their clothes, and especially their bodies with those in the pictures.

Why do we give these celebrity images such power? Can we take so little confidence and comfort in ourselves? I don’t believe that for a second. I do think, though, that the publishers of tabloids like Us, as well as the publicists and paparazzi that feed them material and the advertisers who underwrite them are doing their utmost to dupe us.

They are banking on the twin myths that every woman’s power depends on how she looks – and that all women should look alike. But the most powerful women in America most emphatically do not look – or think or act – alike. Nor do they appear in the pages of Us.

Many of America’s most powerful women are, by celebrity standards, overweight. Many would be decimated by the Us Fashion Police. Many lead lives that may superficially appear as un-sensational as our own; these women are too busy creating art, running companies, legislating governments, or administering justice to attract the attention of paparazzi. But whether we’re talking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton or Maya Angelou, Sherry Lansing or Toni Morrison, we’re talking about women whose fame does not depend on how they look but on what they do and think and contribute to the world in which we all live. They are living proof that to “succeed” as women we need not imitate, much less become, Us.

HOME FROM CHINA!

Hello Everyone!

I’m back from an astounding trip to China, where I visited the lovely Lu Shan, the mountain that I described as Cloud Mountain in my novel of that name. My father’s family used to summer in Kuling, the valley at the top of the mountain, in the 1920s. The town there was built by Americans in the early 1900s, and most of the fieldstone villas are still intact, now being carefully tended and kept by their Chinese residents. We discovered that the home my grandparents built was bombed by the Japanese in 1938, but with the help of a local architect and historian, we located my grandfather’s name inscribed in a stone tablet beside a bridge that he had built in 1926. And my grandparents’ house is memorialized inadvertently in another way – Mao Tse Tung had a villa built on the general site of their house in the 1950s, and that today is a museum!

The journey reminded me how adventure, exploration, and travel can help us all gain a fuller sense of ourselves. You go halfway around the world and discover that you still are connected, related, and relevant. Perhaps more today than ever; our tour guide, a 19-year-old language student, loves South Park. “Who killed Kenny?” she mimicked. Her boyfriend is a Puerto Rican student studying Chinese. The universe is shrinking, making each of us more – not less – important to each other.

I highly recommend the occasional change from routine and everyday responsibility – even if all you can manage is an excursion to the beach – as a reminder that our habitual anxieties, preoccupations, and patterns are not all there is to life. We can transcend ourselves, and in the process become more connected to the universe around us.

I’m sure I’ll write more on this as these latest travels steep, but in the meantime, I want to alert you to a few of my upcoming appearances. In their different ways, all celebrate the richness of life.

For those of you in the Los Angeles area, this Sunday, June 3, I’ll be speaking at the El Segundo Library Author Fair. My panel, “Family Connections,” will be from 2:25 to 3:25 p.m.

Other members of the panel are Chris Erskine (Man of the House); Hope Edelman (Motherless Mothers and Motherless Daughters); Ed Humes (Monkey Girl); Karen Stabiner (The Empty Nest). The moderator will be El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell.

The El Segundo Public Library is located at 111 W. Mariposa at Main   St., in downtown El Segundo. For information, call (310) 524-2729. The event is FREE.

 
From June 8th - 10th I’ll be among the more than 75 authors speaking and reading at Book Group Expo at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose,CA.

My panel, titled “Is It Hot In Here?” is scheduled for Saturday afternoon, June 9. I’ll be speaking along with authors Louann Brizendine (The Female Brain), Sara Davidson (Leap), and Jane Ganahl (Naked on the Page).

Here’s the “official” description of the Expo:

“Meet (famous) authors. Eat chocolate. Attend lively discussions. Taste wine. Have your books signed. Sample desserts. Meet other serious readers. Meet (not yet famous) authors. Savor fine tea. Browse books—lots of books—to your heart’s content. Listen to literati. Enjoy friends. Eat more chocolate. Learn about book groups and book clubs. Have fun. Serious fun.”

Go to www.bookgroupexpo.com for more info.

 

Then, on July 7, I’ll be visiting St.   Louis (for the first time in my life!) to speak at McCallum Place’s 1st Alumni Weekend at the Center of Clayton. This event is for former patients only, but if that includes you I hope you’ll come and say hello. WWW.mccallumplace.com

 

I’ll check in again when I get past jet lag. In the meantime, stay well!

Aimee