2/9/10

2/8/10 - Tearful Reading

I discovered a few new websites today that had me in a variety of tears as I waded through their archives; everything from tears of recognition and sisterhood to raucous laughter and hell yeahs.

The first website is www.theshapeofamother.com and its entire existence is dedicated to providing a space for women to tell their bodies’ stories as they grow, birth, feed and continue to take care of the children we carry for the rest of our lives. It’s an extraordinarily beautiful site full of heartfelt stories from women coming to grips with and developing immense gratitude for their bodies as they change along the process it takes to become a mother. They celebrate stretch marks as mementos of our bodies’ ability to conform to the needs of the babies we have had in our bellies. They laugh good naturedly about the march of gravity across our boobs, bellies and asses. They jump for joy when weight goals are met and are at the ready with encouragement when they’re not. And they do it all with pictures. Unabashedly displaying all of these things that we hide from even our husbands and definitely from ourselves because of the sheer pride of being able to participate in this group of women exclaiming at the top of their lungs what miracles their bodies are capable of. It’s lovely.

The second is Shapely Prose (www.kateharding.net) and she is awesome. She’s hilarious, witty, amazingly honest and I adore her writing for all of these things and the fact that she just doesn’t take herself very seriously which I have a deep appreciation for as that’s a personality trait I’m trying hard to adopt as of late.

The last is www.mamamia.com.au and apparently she’s a pretty well known author and commentator but I’ve never heard of her. I found her through The Shape of a Mother’s Facebook page and while her site has a more journalistic feel to it, she’s still lovely, funny and honest. She write scathingly about the media’s obsession with body image in a way that makes me want to jump up and down and yell hallelujah!

It was a good day immersing myself in new to me writing.

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