Home Body
By Gracie Kibort with art by natalie williams
I’ve lived in the same house my entire life. Like any other, my home leaves much to be desired. The carpets need trimming, bedrooms redecorating, windows need to be shined. The mural on my bedroom wall, which has stood the test of time, often weasels its way to somehow deepen my dissatisfaction past a point I knew possible. Every so often, I note a crack in the ceiling, a chipped coat of paint, a split in the floorboard. I find my thoughts clouded by the things lacking care or detail, the boundless laundry list of maintenance projects. The low hum of aspirational and comparison-inducing HGTV never stopped for an instant. I feel embarrassed and ashamed, inadequate compared to those blessed with higher ceilings, updated aesthetics, and tiles twinkling with so much clarity and depth that the mirror of your reflection glistens. The neighbor’s grass is always greener. A ceaseless bite pushing you to renovate, because your neighbors always are.Yet, when I find myself knee-deep in a bout of self-criticism, chastising every design choice ever made, I’ll stumble upon a nugget of beauty: the deep lushness of the backyard in the summer, the colors of the notorious mural on my bedroom wall, the sun gleaming off of the kitchen floor. Soon, I’m flooded with emotion and memory; depth, mystery, and viability. My home is my body and my body is my home.
Like the scratched walls of a beloved childhood home, etched deeply into a coat of paint, I’ve endured comments about my body over the years that have settled into the contours of my skin. At the ripe old age of eight, a close male friend teased me about the hair on my arms, claiming they resembled those of a man, or maybe even a monkey. Although I’m sure he has no recollection of the conversation circa 2009, as I never brought it up again, there hasn’t been a springtime where I have gone blissfully unaware of my so-called masculine, ape-like appendages. Then, after a health-related weight change when I was 20, there was the case of the pure-intended friend who complimented my new figure, squealing over my new size and how skinny I looked. She praised the fit of my turtleneck, not knowing that few of them still fit like before. What she didn’t know was how I woefully approached my closet each morning, on the verge of tears, mourning the fit of my dearest pairs of jeans. Though there was not an ounce of malice in her voice, her comment stuck to me like a tack to the wall. Tears are shed just as paint chips away. A big nose here, fat legs there. Her ass sure is getting big, they say. Turning a blind eye to the general wear and tear is simple until it’s blatantly obvious. On display for others to critique.
I live in a beautiful neighborhood. I often reflect on the sublimity of the women in my life, writing boundless essays on their interior and exterior profundity in the notebook of my mind. However, each of these women, along with their mothers and sisters, grapple with the tumultuous relationship with one’s body, and one’s home. There is never a gap in the lazy Susan’s incessant rotation of internalized physical hyper-fixations existing in their consciousness playground. You may not know the demons your friends are constantly facing. Who can we blame? How do we fix it? These are questions with answers I do not possess, but we can start by ceasing our comments on the bodies of those in front of us, next door, our neighbors, and online.
A house is more than meets the eye. We are so much beyond our physicality, so why must we continue to criticize our own perceived flaws or those of others? Possibly minuscule at conception, the weight of harmful body language multiplies, deeply etching and carving into the foundation of our homes.