Hope is a 4 letter word

Sometimes my brain is mean to me, so I made this the other day on canva to remind myself of some of the things I can do to be better friends with myself. I thought a few other folks out here might find it useful too.

Haha aw, thank you. Just over here trying not to let myself doom spiral too often, and figure if I can haul myself out of that whirlpool then maybe I can take a few more folks with me.

I just got solar panels installed on my house and my 3 y/o kiddo is SO EXCITED about them. It's giving me a lot of hope that we'll see majority renewables in his lifetime!

What if the children go to schools unafraid of tear gas and bullets?

What if the birds come back, and the bees are healed, and every species moves from endangered, to threatened, to thriving?

What if the rainforest ADVANCES?

What if every parking lot had solar panels? What if every structure had solar panels? What if we built climbing gyms and terraced gardens in the skeletons of old coal power plants?

What if you baked your neighbor bread, and they shared their home-grown blackberries?

What if every person who needed a home, had one? What if every person who needed healing was healed?

What if every body was treasured for what it was, not what it should be?

What if every trans child's parents attended their graduation, their wedding, their new-name-day?

What if every warehouse became a closed-circle repair station? Goods flowing out, and back, and out again? What if landfills started to SHRINK?

What if the water and air were clean? What if there was enough public transit that the cars dwindled, leaving the streets safe for kids on bikes, evening deer, midnight cats and foxes?

What if we win?

The US weightloss industry grew to a record $90 billion in 2023. With that money, we could:

end world hunger (~$90 billion)

educate almost every child in the world (~$100 billion)

house every homeless person in the US (~$30 billion), build a highspeed rail line between New York and Chicago (~$22 billion), make all school lunches free ($25 billion), triple the budget of the National Parks (usually $3.1 billion, let's give them $10 billion), and still have ~$3 billion left over to, I don't know, fund the National Endowment for the Arts for the next 13 years (usually $220 million)

This morning, I sat through a consult with a coolsculpting clinic while a very nice person told me I could get rid of my back rolls for $3,000, and I could even finance it if I wanted to.

No lie, I'm 300lbs. I'm fat.

But what could I do with three thousand dollars?

take my 3 y/o to Europe to meet his cousins.

buy all my friends a costco membership for the next 5 years.

pay for half of what it would cost to replace the outdated plumbing in my house.

build the coolest garden ever, get all new beekeeping equipment, get at least half a new wardrobe, have my dogs groomed, and get a mani/pedi every month for three months.

Why is it so hard to choose?

Because an industry that could be doing LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE would rather make money off of us hating ourselves.

Let’s imagine labor in exchange for value that increases our life span, our joy, our humanity. Working because the work is GOOD and the work makes GOOD and does GOOD. That every job has dignity and value, and is treated with respect. 

Let’s imagine systems in place judged by how they serve EVERYONE, not on how much profit they generate. 

Imagine Amazon’s infrastructure dedicated to thrifting, warehouses filled with closed-loop clothing and repairable technology, warehouse workers’ labor treated as skilled and respected as stewards of our resources. 

Let’s imagine infinitely accessible public transportation. Municipal fleets of electric vehicles in the rural areas and far suburbs, trams and trolleys and buses closer to urban centers, trains crossing swaths of country to connect people across the land. Every mile of road or track there’s a wildlife crossing, no more deer or raccoons or rabbits dead on the side of the road. 

Let’s imagine no landlords. Let’s imagine housing as a DIGNITY rather than a luxury. 

Let’s imagine people amassing too much wealth by mistake and being EMBARRASSED about it, because it is embarrassing to have so much, like a child who won’t share their toys. They hurry to give it away, they compete to build libraries and better schools and erase medical debts and fund arts initiatives. 

Let’s imagine kindness. Let’s imagine every parent attending their trans or gay child’s wedding. Let’s imagine disabilities honored, space made for different needs and abilities and preferences. Let’s imagine apologies, and reconciliations, and new understanding, and deep breaths and long hugs. 

Let’s imagine accessible playgrounds at every train station. Solar panels on every roof. Community gardens on every block. 

Let’s imagine learning things because we want to learn them, and honoring knowledge because knowledge is good, not because it’ll make us money. It is good to know that our bones are made of carbon, which is the same thing as stardust, or that the mantis shrimp can see colors that I can’t, or that wolves love their grandparents, or that whales mourn, or that trees talk through lightning sent underground through mushrooms, even though none of it will ever make me a dime. 

Let’s imagine teaching gardening, beekeeping, animal husbandry, forestry, sustainable materials, and responsible stewardship of resources as classes in school. You learn math, and language arts, and music, and also how to plant a raspberry vine, find a queen bee, feed a baby goat, identify sick and healthy trees, fix your clothing, and carefully use and reuse things, from kindergarten until you’re 18. 

Let’s imagine countries competing to GROW and EXPAND their rainforests. 

Let’s imagine whole species coming back, raising our children to know and love the sea turtles, the rhinos, the tigers and the condors. 

Let’s imagine every human fed, no child knowing the sound of a gunshot indoors, and every need met. 

The joy of eating a strawberry, raspberry, or cherry tomato straight from the plant.

To love books.

How to say thank you to people, animals, plants, and the world for taking care of him.

How to take care of himself.

How to care for a dog, a goat, a horse, a friend, a beehive, a garden, and his own heart.

To tell people what he's feeling. To tell himself what he's feeling.

How to bake an amazing chocolate cake. How to make an amazing salad.

To compost.

To save water, to recycle, to thrift, and to reuse.

That his body is his, and that he gets to decide what happens to it.

That his body can feel all kinds of things, and he can feel them when and how and with whom he chooses.

That other people's bodies belong to them, and they can choose to share them with him, or not, as they decide.

How to give and receive compliments.

To wear the clothes that make his heart happy and his body feel good.

To laugh as loud as he wants.

To say NO. To say YES.

To dance and play sports and make music and art because it's FUN, and not because he needs to be "good at it".

To ask for and give hugs whenever they're needed.

To stand up for others. To stand up for himself.

That being a man - if that's what he wants to be - means being HIMSELF.

Spoilers for the Saint of Steel series' second book, which is Paladin's Strength, but only one real plot/story spoiler and not one that you wouldn't figure out within the first few chapters of Paladin's Strength anyway.

Ok you've been warned.

Clara is the female POV character and she and the male POV character, Istvhan, eventually get together. They are also both REALLY. BIG. PEOPLE. Like Istvhan is described as being about 6'5" and as wide across as an ox, but CLARA is also described as almost as tall as him ("well over 6 feet"). She's also "built to the same scale" as Istvhan, and "soft fat over hard muscle" and with "breasts and belly to match". In other words, she's a big tall fat woman, and to top it all of she's 37 years old. Not the conventional fantasy-romance female AT ALL.

AND THE THING IS that I would expect a woman described this way to act as if she wasn't physically attractive - fat, too big, etc - but Clara never acts this way, AND IT'S GREAT.

Because Clara's thing is that she's a were-bear. She's a nun in the order of Saint Ursa, who is the patron saint of people who are born with this ability. The saint "calls" only women, and the shapeshifting usually shows up when the person is young, about 8 or 9. So Clara grew up in a convent surrounded by women who were all not even the littlest bit worried about being attractive to men (there weren't any around) OR being afraid of them, because if they needed to scare off a person they could always, you know, TURN INTO A 700lb BEAR.

And this shows up in how Clara is written so beautifully. Clara doesn't carry herself like she's trying to seem smaller. She doesn't shy away from bawdy jokes or randy humor or pretend that she doesn't have any interest in sex (she absolutely does), and she also doesn't treat herself as if she's somebody's fetish. She just IS a person.

This healed something deep inside me because I am also a big tall fat woman. I'm not 6'5", just 6', but I'm definitely fat and muscle and I have been the biggest person (definitely the biggest woman) in many spaces I've existed in for my whole life. I always see characters written to look like me like they are trying to seem smaller, like they couldn't possibly be the object of sexual desire without being fetishized, and as if their happy ending is happening IN SPITE OF that they're fat/big/therefore undesirable. That they should be GRATEFUL SOMEONE EVEN NOTICED THEM.

Clara just isn't that, and it is so absolutely refreshing. She knows what she wants, she isn't there as a foil for Istvhan, she is on her own quest and yes godsdammit Istvhan is sexy as hell but also she has other things to do. And Istvhan is attracted to her TOTALLY: intellectually, emotionally, AND PHYSICALLY. He never once describes her as, for example, 'gorgeous except for that unfortunate belly pooch' or whatever. No, he is unabashedly attracted to all of her, including and BECAUSE OF her size, and because he's a POV I get to hear a man's thoughts on an ass that looks like mine and it's GREAT.

For those of y'all who know me IRL (and some who read some previous posts where I wine about being a fat person under capitalism and therefore not feeling as if I'll ever be sexy or desirable) you know I've worked HARD to like myself. Being the big tall fat girl growing up in the 90s/00s was ROUGH and my family often made it worse. I've often felt like I got to the point where I could be sexy EVEN THOUGH I'm big/fat, or I could be a big and fat person but I could be sexy IF I WAS ALSO THIS OTHER THING (flexible, strong, dressed in a certain way, etc). But Clara being so unabashedly her biggest, baddest, sexiest self made me think that maybe I don't have to try to be any of those other things. I could just... be me, and not try to be smaller or different or other than I was.

Like I absolutely hate myself right now. I feel like a useless slob who will never be beautiful or attractive, who will always be "fat" and unwanted and lonely and worth-less and obviously all my friends hate me and ALL OF THIS IS A LIE BUT I'VE BEEN INDOCTRINATED INTO IT SINCE BIRTH SO I CAN'T GET RID OF IT.

I'm a 300lb 6ft tall woman who can deadlift almost 400lbs and bench 220lbs and run a mile in 8min. I have a loving family and good friends and I make a difference in the lives of the people I work with. I'm weird and funny and I go to punk rock shows and I have cool tattoos and I make informative content about international education and I grow great gardens and my friends ask me for help and advice and to embroider flowers on their jeans and read their tarot cards and bring them wildflower jam and ALL OF THIS IS TRUE BUT FOR SOME REASON BECAUSE I CAN'T BE COMMODIFIED IT DOESN'T MATTER WHY DO I JUST WANT TO BE SEXY???

So this is me yelling at myself, and at you in case you need it:

DON'T LET THEM WIN.

All of this is great. Definitely do it. Definitely commit, as much as you can, to taking back the only power recognized by capitalism. That is, the dollars the you generate and the attention they demand.

AND

Remember that the Alabama bus boycotts lasted MORE THAN A YEAR. Remember that the French labor unions have to go on strike for WEEKS to see results. Remember that targeted boycotts are much more about making companies loose face rather than dollars, and that making noise (ie. generating media coverage) matters a great deal.

Put your usual purchases in your amazon/target cart,

abandon it,

cancel your prime membership,

then go find local stores to make your purchases at.

AND COMMIT TO MAKING THIS CHANGE PERMANENT.

This isn't about "Amazon needs to do better and then we'll give them back their money", this is about taking away Amazon's power INDEFINITELY.

Join Buy-Nothing groups and share your own resources.

Consider different solutions to problems you'd usually solve by purchasing things. (My most recent personal example is that I really needed an over-sink drying rack to keep my kid's dishes clean, but I didn't want to buy one - so I rigged something up with twine, a piece of a broken shoe rack, and some push pins).

Look to the people that capitalism has historically marginalized and harmed the most. My father-in-law (from a dirt poor Appalachian family) has a garage full of what I thought was "junk" but that man has never had to go BUY a tool, he's always got something somewhere that will do the job. Is it hording if his neighbors and family can always rely on him to let them borrow a claw hammer?

Utilize anti-cap resources - libraries, makers-spaces, repair cafes, parks.

Stop participating (as much as you can) in the economy that harms you.

Find ways to spend as LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, for AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.*

We aren't going to fix these companies, they are PART OF THE BROKEN SYSTEM.

It's punk to be fat, in a world that wants you to keep getting smaller.

It's punk to ride an old bike, drive an old car, patch your old clothes with different colored thread, cut up old sheets for rags instead of using paper towels, and make stuffed animals out of scrap fabric, in a world that wants you to just "order it off amazon".

It's punk to tend a messy, overgrown, weed-filled garden. Tomatoes grow right next to dandelions.

It's punk to can the veggies from your messy garden and give your neighbors delicious tomato soup in the depths of winter.

It's punk to make a bird feeder and look out the window to take a break from your screen.

It's punk to wear your "Let Trans Kids Play" shirt to a college basketball game where there are no trans players, because a trans kid in the crowd will see it and maybe (this year) decide to join the team.

It's punk to have wrinkles, when the world wants you to stop aging at 23.

It's punk to go to your local library.

It's punk to take your kids to your local library.

It's punk to take your kids to a pride parade, a sit-in, a land-back ceremony, an accessible trunk-or-treat, a soup kitchen.

It's punk to plant trees. It's punk to PROTECT trees.

It's punk save for solar panels, someday.

A thousand dollars. Fuck, ten thousand dollars.

A massage. Like a long one that leaves me feeling like overcooked spaghetti afterwards.

A video of her telling me she still thinks I'm cool, even though I'm sick with the cold my two-year-old brought home from daycare and I can't do ANYTHING.

Some ozempic, even though I do and will always stand for the liberation of my own fat body. It's just exhausting trying to fight against so much social hatred just to like myself.

A big box of those gluten-free stroopwafels.

Some of her art - whatever it is she's working on right now.

A guide on how to start a community center, where I can teach free yoga and run a tea/coffee shop with a bakery staffed only by formerly incarcerated folx with a big community garden outside and a food pantry and a playground and weekly free dinners.

A thousand dollars.

Her most recent favorite poem.

The smell of the first snow from her little Oregon mountain town. The sound of the blacktail deer and the coyotes skittering away while we're on an early morning run. The sight of Mt. Shasta, covered in white and streaming clouds bright with the sunrise.

An appointment for a new tattoo.

The surgery my dog needs.

Dreaming of making raised garden beds out of reusable pallets (the heat-treated kind) and giving them away.

Dreaming of neighborhood meal-trains for families in need. Just had a baby? Surgery? The loss of a loved one? Your doorstep is now covered in casseroles and cookies. Yes we know you're gluten-intolerant, all the food is safe for you.

Dreaming of having my son's friends over after school and just... letting them be here. Your favorite snacks are in the fridge, your favorite comics are on the shelf, the dogs are so happy to see you. I'm sorry your grandma doesn't understand that you like boys. Your mom's at work still? That's ok, I've got her number, if she has to stay late we're having spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

Dreaming of every mother attending every trans-child's wedding.

Dreaming of my kiddo growing up and not just LOVING women and girls but RESPECTING them and VALUING them, getting to see other men in his life setting the BEST examples.

Dreaming of parking lots covered in solar panels.

Dreaming of not needing parking lots.

Dreaming of teaching kids about bees.

I am choosing to imagine public transportation. 

Grocery stores with attached soup kitchens to decrease food waste. 

Neighborhood meal- and garden-sharing programs.

Green spaces connecting to other green spaces.

The rainforest ADVANCING, churning up dry soil and turning it dark and healthy. 

The sky filled with birds and the sea with fish, their populations increasing. 

The air and water clean. 

Emissions-free vehicles on roadways, with speeds governed, and safe streets for tricycles, bicycles, dogs, deer, and stray soccer balls.

Solar panels on every public building, over every parking lot. 

Beehives and wildflowers on the open berms between roadways. 

Sports can be fraught with corruption and greed, as can most things that are important to humanity - just look at the music industry, fashion, food - but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t embrace all the things that make them great. The great things were there before the corruption, and the doping accusations, and the petty rivalries. Sports are one of the few arenas where we can give our all, develop skill and strength and power and artistry and courage and daring, and experience total triumph or total defeat, but still absolutely OWN the victory of DOING THE THING. 

You practice and you play and you practice and you try and you work so hard and you DO THE THING and at the end of it, regardless of how you compared to others, you DID THE THING. You strove, you pushed, you focused, you achieved. The world is a terrifying place and a lot of the time I have no idea if the things I’m doing to survive are worth doing but at the end of the day I still did things, and how great would it be if DOING THE THING was as valued in our everyday tasks as it is in the sports we love. Everyday they go to practice, and everyday I do the dishes, the laundry, answer the emails. These things I have to do to survive, and they don’t exactly bring me joy, but together they help make a life that I want to live. A life with good food, clean clothes, a little money to buy treats for my child and my dogs. In the same way, I’m sure an athlete doesn’t want to run the same drill over and over and over and over again, but together those drills and practices all come together to make a game, a performance, a routine, a sport that creates joy. 

Let’s see the art, the effort, the strength, the victory and defeat that are all a deep part of DOING THE THING.