My Mother’s Belly

I want to talk about my mother’s belly. I am reading Your Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor. She talks of the freedom in loving yourself so deeply that you understand that you owe no one an apology for your body – not our size, our skin color, the clothing we wear, the sound of our voices, the loudness of our laughs, the way we both exist and choose to exist in this world. I am so inspired. I am inspired to seek my own freedom, my own liberation towards radical self-love. To find a place beyond tolerance of this physical form that sustains my life, and instead a place of deep appreciation and unapologetic love. 

And, I am stuck. Stuck in mud so deep that I am afraid that if I even try to get myself out, that I’ll fall over and be stuck forever. I’ve been stuck for so long that the mud is dried out. Caked to my skin, housing my feet like concrete. A brown concrete, that even though it smells like the earth, the home that makes me feel alive, is threatening my existence if I struggle too much. If I reach down, I might lose my balance and then I’ll be covered in mud. If I try to lift my leg, the mud sucks tighter. So instead, I’ve just been standing still. Allowing this warm mud to dry from my idleness. My feet are numb, my legs are burning. But I just stand there, ignoring the pain, because it’s survival.

Taylor opens her book with a poem about her mother’s belly. It is so beautiful, and honors her mother in a way that makes me feel deep love and care for a woman I only know through her words.

And it takes me back. To my mother’s belly.

When I was younger, my mother didn’t think much about changing clothes or getting out of the shower in front of us. Her own act of radical self-acceptance. I know my mother’s body well as a result. Always interested in what womanhood was coming for me. Seeing how age hits your legs, arms, belly differently than my own child-aging body. I think of the moles that sprinkle her back, the tender spots on her arms that I always thought were perfect. I think of her breasts and wondering if mine would look the same one day. Her tan lines and how they mimicked the seasons of swimming and beach weather. 

And then her belly. Her place of apology. Whenever she caught me looking, she’d say something along the lines of…”This big belly is because I had three big children, one day I’ll get it back.” Or “It’s this way forever after having kids.” I don’t think I ever heard her mutter these exact words, I suspect it’s my imagination, but what I always heard was “motherhood ruined my body, and I can never go back.”

When she spoke ill, subtly often, of her round, soft, white belly, it was never prompted by my comments. Instead, her ego couldn’t help itself, encouraging her to apologize to her young daughter for its size.  Apologize as if I must be judging her, because the world does that. But I was young, and was still learning how to walk in this world in my own body. I knew that she told me I had a beautiful, flat belly. I knew that my Grandmother thought it wasn’t flat enough. I knew that I fit into the clothes that my mom told me she wished were still for her. 

But I didn’t know that her belly was something to be ashamed of. And, I didn’t know what to say in response. 

It didn’t feel like my place or my right to offer her any of my thoughts or confusion. Her belly seemed like nothing more than a piece of her strong, brave, loving body that held me so tightly when I needed it to. It was the soft cushion between us when she gave me a hug and didn’t let go. It was the place where I rested my head while she stroked my hair to comfort me in the sadness I felt. I knew that belly. I just knew it differently. 

And frankly, it never seemed all that bad to me. It was just a belly, and she had us. Me, my sister and brother. My mother is a tiny woman and I had seen pictures of her before she was pregnant. Her tiny frame was in the past, this belly was her new reality. This belly was the only Mom I ever knew. 

Sometimes, she’d pull her underwear up high to cover it. Wear baggy tops to hide it. Sometimes, she didn’t. And I’d catch the criticism she offered herself when she did. Always speaking of re-starting a diet or exercising to the newest aerobics fad.

I never knew what to say and mostly because I didn’t know how to make it better. And also because I was the originator of the change in that belly. The first born who changed the shape of her body. She always told me how big I was growing inside of her, how long her labor was, how late I was to arrive. I didn’t feel I had the right to tell her she was wrong about her belly. When I got older, and better understood the social aspects of weight loss and body image, I’d offer support or suggestions for diet or exercise. Thinking this is what she wanted.

As an adult, I now realize the push and pull of knowing that her belly was my first home. The creation of my body. My soul chose it to come into this world. And she despised it. She saw it as something that took away her past. Was a reminder of the difficulties in pregnancy and birth. But I loved her belly. It was the place where I first heard her voice, smelled her essence, felt her heartbeat. It was the place where I chose to stay so long, birthed so late, because it was a place I never wanted to leave. Deep in her body, her love, her motherhood. 

She’s older now and years of changing food regimens and exercise have shrunk that belly. I wonder now what she thinks. If she feels any better, or if she sees it as the same, even though it’s roundness is so much more subtle.

I realize now how imprinted this part of my raising is in my body. I also grew two humans in a body that had struggles in doing so. And I now have a soft, round, white belly that is forever a reminder of that struggle. And I hate my belly just like she did, does. But I hate it differently. I have chosen ignorance, tolerance, apathy. I hate it so I ignore it. It feels easier to ignore something than to invest the hate into it because it takes so little work to be in this place. It takes an overwhelming amount of energy to uplift the hatred I feel. Plus, I know others do the work for me, hating this belly for me. In the outside world, I know that people wonder if I’m pregnant. I know that there is judgment in how I couldn’t get my body back. And there are thoughts on how lazy I am as a mom. Others can do it, so why can’t I. 

But no one asks, or knows that it’s not any of those things. It’s simply that I don’t want to think or do anything with this belly.

So I’m stuck in this mud. Dried up mud. Ignoring all of the pain, discomfort. I’ve been so stagnant that I am literally stuck.

Oddly, I can see that simply, I need to start with some water. To loosen the soil around my feet. To make it so I can start to move again. But water is nourishment. And to nourish means that there has to be something to nourish. And having something to nourish means I have to see it, and most importantly decide it’s deserving of such care.

This belly is a constant reminder of how my body failed me.

With two pregnancies, I failed both times. To grow humans without complication, to birth humans without fear. Neither pregnancy would have resulted in my survival, their survival without medical intervention. I am so resentful of that. Resentful that a system I know is harmful, was needed for my survival. This is my great failure.

And as I write that, two little humans run around my house laughing. Loving life. I do not ignore the dichotomy here. Both success and failure.

Yet, I am still stuck in this mud. And I think I want to stay here a little longer, for now anyhow.