tinywordsblog

[tinywordsblog]

Tiny Words is a creative nonfiction podcast, featuring my own writing and stories. In episode 1, I talk about my experiences with disordered eating, body image, and recovery. 

And, more than anything, this is an ode to little Amber, and the little legs that have carried her this far. (It’s also an ode to the White Rabbit Cafe’s vegan chocolate chip cookies).

Trigger Warning: This podcast episode discusses topics of disordered eating, weight, health, calories, and food. If these things are triggering to you, I would not recommend listening to this episode, but I appreciate you nonetheless. 

Transcript: 

The goal of the ‘Tiny Words’ blog has always been to highlight the small truths of life, those that make up our existence and have a larger impact than it might seem on the surface. For this podcast series, I’ll be featuring my own writing as an audio presentation. I’ll be telling my own stories (and perhaps those of others) through a format that is new to me as a creator. Throughout the past few months, I’ve reopened the world of creativity and writing--a realm that has long been boarded up and evacuated. I wanted to reopen that realm in this podcast episode by writing a story that many months of therapy has shown me is one of my own truths. With that said, I present “Just a Little Husky” to you. I hope you find something of myself in this. 

DISCLAIMER: I want to preface this story with a trigger warning. This episode discusses topics of disordered eating, weight, health, calories, and food. If these things are triggering to you, this episode might not be best for you. 

[introduction music fades into the story]

I was in elementary school when I discovered what a body was. I knew that we all had stomachs and arms and legs and chins. I was aware of those things only as they related to being a child. My legs carried me where I needed to go. My arms were used for holding and hugging and gesturing. My stomach was something to be fed and nurtured. But I never knew what those things were supposed to look like. Or that those things were “supposed” to look like anything at all. At that same age, my older sister’s friend--only 2 short years older than myself--lost a significant amount of weight. Our families rallied around her, remarked on her “dedication” and the clockwork-like Wii Fit exercises she was doing. For the first time in my life, thinness was celebrated. 

I became aware of the looks that those closest to me had given plus-size women before I knew what a plus size woman was. The side-eyed glances to a woman in a form-fitting shirt. Scoffs cast on young girls confidently wearing shorts when “they really shouldn’t be wearing shorts that short. Not with that body.” 

When my sister’s friend lost weight, and more importantly when she was celebrated for her weight loss, my innocence began to crack and shatter. A mirror had been turned on myself, and confidence became something you needed to shrink yourself down into. 

My sophomore year of high school, a pediatrician--one who considered himself “traditional” to be exact--told my mother and I that, “it wasn’t a problem yet. She’s not overweight. Just a little husky.” 

Just a little husky. Just a little husky. Just a little husky. 

Not a problem yet, but becoming one. Just a little husky.

He diagnosed me with the feelings of self-hatred that had cast their shadow on my reflection. “Just a little husky” and suddenly I became no more than a number. 

It wasn’t until a year ago, when my therapist furrowed her brows and asked, “He said what?” that I realized my pediatrician’s words were the wrong thing--not my body. Now, I see his comment as a lapse in his judgment. Back then, though, it was a death sentence.

I was raised on diet culture and calorie counting apps and skinny teas and fat-free versions of your favorite snack foods. That day at the doctor’s office, I was prescribed a monster thinly-veiling itself as healthy living. It told me that to be healthy was to avoid. To shrink. To achieve the smallest possible number. 

And, really, the numbers were all I had. Scale in the morning, before breakfast to be the smallest possible weight. “Bare minimum” best describes it. I ate cereal in the morning, exactly one cup-sized measuring cup full of Special-K with no milk. I would eat a  sandwich for lunch, on bread that was strictly labeled “light,” spread with one exact tablespoon of peanut butter-- or perhaps two, on a cheat day. I ate snacks, but never more than 90-calories each. For dinner I would eat with my family, but I “portion controlled” and never took a second serving. I’d eat side salads as a main meal on a bad day, and dessert was a rarity. My pantry was full of green block text screaming “light,” “low-fat,” “diet soda,” “shrink yourself until there’s nothing left”, and wither away faster with this brand of pretzels for a lower rate than the competitor!

The patriarchy packaged up an eating disorder into a glittering pink parcel and sold it to me on a silver scale. Told me I was too fat to feel worthy of a crop top. I was commercialized into a fat kid with a complex about the clothes I wore and the way I sat, constantly aware of  the way my face morphed into a smile and how my body moved around me when I danced. I sewed my worth into the waistband of my pants. I practiced my smile and adjusted my posture. I wore only the size that I wanted to be, and if a store’s clothes ran smaller--forcing me into the next size up--I cried my way to another. I was “just a little husky,” and the diet was not enough to erase those words from the corners of my mind. 

I once heard a slam poem by Blythe Baird called ‘When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny’ that says, “If you develop an eating disorder when you are already thin to begin with, you go to the hospital. If you develop an eating disorder when you are not thin to begin with, you are a success story.” When I first heard Baird’s poem, I tried to pretend that I wasn’t listening to my own existence sung back to me from someone else’s mouth. But it was my own song. When you go from being fat to being skinny through means of an eating disorder, your mental illness becomes a physical celebration. I was fifteen years old being asked what my “secret” was by fully-grown aunts and uncles. I was told “You look great”, a compliment that I’ve learned translates to “You look smaller.” They applauded me even when I asked for no Easter candy, when I asked permission to eat my birthday cake “and even the ice cream, too?” 

To this day, I still ask for permission when eating a fear food, but now I’m able to answer my own question. When I was restricting myself, I thought of progress only in quantitative terms. I was a series of numbers, gradually getting smaller, hoping to never get bigger. Now, I can see my progress cast around my person like light falls through a window. The light does not pick and choose certain objects to illuminate just like my disordered eating did not pick and choose certain aspects to affect while leaving others untouched. When progress came, it could be seen shimmering on every surface. I see my progress in the way I slouch in chairs. In how I clothe myself in patterns that I love rather than vertical stripes because, to quote a dying fashion industry, “horizontal stripes make you look bigger.” In how I laugh without covering my mouth. In how I’m trying to learn to love my smile no matter how it stretches my face. In how I speak without fear of my voice “sounding fat,” though I’m still not sure how fifteen-year-old Amber thought a voice could sound that way. 

In how, even on my bad body days, I buy myself White Rabbit Cafe-sized vegan chocolate chip cookies. In how I sweeten my tea and spice my food. In how I’ve forgotten the number of calories in a single grape and couldn’t tell you the amount of carbs in a bowl of pasta. In how I love my stretch marks as if they were the perfect tattoos. 

My body certainly isn’t a temple, but I’m learning day-by-day to turn it into a warm bed on a rainy day. It’s becoming a place to take comfort, a thing to clothe in loving embraces and swaths of my favorite colors. Or, rather than making it a metaphor, maybe my body is just my body. My means of navigating the world. The vessel used to love and be loved. The thing I carry around with me always. 

Maybe I am “just a little bit husky,” and that’s a thing to be celebrated, too.

[tinywordsblog]

modern love. 

In 2015, Mandy Len Catron’s essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This” was published by the New York Times. Based on a study by psychologist Arthur Aron, it involves Catron and a perfect stranger asking each other a series of increasingly more vulnerable questions in an attempt to spark love between the strangers. The idea is to foster love and intimacy between two individuals who did not previously know each other. But what about when the two are already in love?

I’ve seen this done with other couples, so I don’t claim originality with this idea. But when looking at these questions, I felt myself wanting to ask Tony, my partner, my person, and my love.

Our relationship, I believe, was founded on a first date that involved 3 hours of talking, just like this, in an Eat ‘n Park booth, after seeing a Thor movie on a Friday night. Since then, we’ve always allowed ourselves to stay vulnerable, to spark conversation and allow it to get “deep,” whatever that really means. So, I asked him the 36 questions to fall in love. Here’s how the experience went.

-------

There’s a reason that our recording begins like this: [audio clip of Tony and I laughing, where one laugh (mine) is the loudest]

As the questions started off light-hearted, and as I was filming this after a long, exhausting day, we spent the first few goofing off. We’re talkative, so each answer took several minutes.

In Catron’s essay, she mentions the boiling frog experiment, where the frog doesn’t even realize that they’re being boiled “until it’s too late.” As the questions started increasing the level of intimacy, the two strangers hardly noticed. With Tony and I, it wasn’t that we weren’t aware that the water was getting hotter. We were just used to boiling. We were used to vulnerability on both ends, allowing us to take the questions without too much of a second thought.

The realization that I had, doing an experiment to foster a love that already existed, was that our vulnerability allowed us to communicate without needing to. When we reached questions that sparked uncomfortability--questions about things affecting me in the Here and Now--Tony would respond with a simple, “Yeah, I won’t make you answer that” and a nod. I had already answered the question for him, and I didn’t need to verbalize that answer for him to  understand.

We’ve been together for just shy of three years at this point. Recently, we signed the lease for our apartment. We bought a couch of our own.

Our progress, intimacy, and love for one another has grown significantly since our simultaneously awkward and comforting conversation over empty dessert plates in the Eat ‘n Park booth. You can see that in our answer to question 25.

[audio clip where we answer a prompt that asks us to create three true ‘we’ statements each]

We are doing great things. We share a couch. Our first couch, in our first apartment. In a living room that doubles as the kitchen, but a living room nonetheless. We love each other.

I like how Catron ends her essay. She and her stranger did end up in a relationship, and of this occurrence she says, “We spent weeks in the intimate space we created that night, waiting to see what it would become. Love didn’t happen to us. We’re in love because we each made the choice to be.”

Tony and I, over the years, have had the conversations that this experiment intends to create. We’ve asked hundreds of Modern Love questions, cried and laughed all the same. We made the choice to constantly leave the door open for vulnerability. We share our thoughts and emotions at any moment of the day. And now, we have a couch to share, too.

[tinywordsblog]

My friendship with Jess is the closest and deepest one that I have. I can’t remember how exactly we met, and there isn’t one point where we became close. We shed the labels of “best friend” and all of the constrictions that come with that title. Our friendship just is what it is. We can (and frequently, we do) go months, even years without talking. But when we remember to reach out, we jump right back in. 

This conversation is one of the times where we catch up and unpack what has happened mentally and emotionally in each of our minds in the time that has elapsed. We discuss our thoughts on healing, the hectic lives we shared in high school, and the things we’ve discovered about ourselves along the way. Or, something like that at least.

I would have recorded explanations for each piece of the conversation, taken a more organized approach to interviewing and guiding us. But, when our minds come together, there isn’t much organization that happens with Jess and I. So enjoy one moment of our scattered minds, and maybe learn a thing or two.

[tinywordsblog]

Coming Soon: 

Jess is one of my longest and closest friendships, and she’s someone that, even after not speaking for months (which happens regularly), I can sit down and have the most meaningful of conversations with (whatever meaningful even ends up meaning). Next week’s post is going to be just that: one of our conversations. 

[ID: A photo of Jess (right) and I (left) following a performance of Beauty and the Beast. Jess is still in costume (as Belle, of course), and a crowd of people can be seen behind us.]

[tinywordsblog]

‘between cups of tea’ is a gentle reminder and a moment to breathe. it’s also an ode to tea. 

[Transcript: 

Today I woke up with a plan. I was dead set on productivity, on conquering worlds and coming out as some sort of victor at the end of the day. I always have this expectation for mornings. But that didn’t happen, exactly. 

I even had other plans for this video, and yet I wasn’t feeling motivated to follow through on any of it. Which is normal, I suppose. When lack of motivation happens, though, it’s easy to get lost in it. 

It’s always been difficult to remind myself to take things slow once in a while, to take care of myself the way I take care of everything else. It can also be difficult to remind myself that this is a normal feeling, and that it’ll pass. 

Today is one of the lower days, which is okay. This morning, I saw a TikTok that invited people to list their reasons to recover and to take care of themselves. One of the comments was: “Sometimes, you’re just going from one cup of tea to the next.” Which was exactly what I needed to hear. 

Seeing that comment told me what I needed to know for the day. As humans, I think we have a tendency to place our value in productivity or work ethic or daily accomplishments. But this morning I was reminded that it’s an accomplishment simply to exist between cups of tea. To move through the day at whatever pace we choose that day. 

When I read it, I was struggling with...well, I was struggling with struggling. Over my previous video ideas, over schoolwork, over self-care and self-esteem and self-worth. But a cup of tea and a comment from a stranger helped me to break that struggle, even for just a second. 

And I’ve decided to hopefully pass that on. I’m not sure what point you’re at in your day, but use this as a moment to breathe, and remind yourself that value isn’t tied to productivity or accomplishments. It’s tied to the moments between cups of tea. ]

[tinywordsblog]

Plants That Breathe

Transcript: 

Sir Richard is my favorite plant, but I’d never admit that to the others. If you were wondering where the name came from, I’m not sure what to tell you--the name just seemed right at the time. Regal, I think. When I bought him, he was small enough to fit in the cupholder of our Chevy Impala. He had eight leaves on 3 stems, and the stems were short enough that they stood firmly upright, sticking straight out of the soil. 

Two years later, I’ve had to move Sir Richard to the top of my highest bookshelf, and his stems cascade past 5 shelves’ worth of books. The gravity of these stems means I had to plop his pot into a heavy glass vase after a few brushes with death---or, I guess a few brushes with the carpet when his greenery sent him tumbling off of my shelf. He has too many leaves to count, but if I had to guess I’d say the number is around 60 to a hundred. (I’m not very good at guessing, though.) Instead of four stems, he has dozens. 

And the family has grown from one small cup holder-sized plant to a family of about fifteen, and growing. On top of that, I’ve learned to propagate--to clip leaves from one plant and create a whole new one. Giving clippings to others has given new meaning to “gifts from the heart” -- something that truly stems from the heart and soul. 

At times and especially at this moment, life gets just a bit overwhelming. Work piles on, responsibilities line up behind you, and it can feel like progress is hopeless. You come to a stand-still. I noticed this happening lately to myself. The sensation of drowning takes over. I notice laundry going undone, meals being replaced with takeout, assignments waiting until I’ve just about arrived at the due date. I notice the leaves of my houseplants start to droop, and realize that I’ve forgotten them a bit, too. 

But did you know that plants can breathe? When you water them, or change their light, or change their spot in the room, the plant adjusts themselves to the new conditions. The leaves move slow enough that we can’t see them in real time. But the changes are there. Slow movements toward the light or into the shade. Standing up taller as water fills the roots. Spreading out and away as new leaves unfurl. 

Plants take the biggest breaths after a period of neglect. If the soil is bone dry and the leaves are wilting, you’ll notice the day you water it again that it takes a gulp of life. In that case, the smallest bits of attention bring dramatic changes. 

This was a learning curve for me. Perfectionism takes all forms and invades all spaces. One fallen leaf was another failure for the books. But it’s a comfort to know that my plants breathe around me. That along with oxygen they give off life. Their breaths fuel mine, no matter how far underwater I may feel. 

If you’re in the market for a reason to swim to the surface, I and my plants would suggest a tiny breath. Start small, start from the roots. Find the sunniest spot in your home and rest there for a while. Or maybe that isn’t what you need. Maybe you need a cool, dark place, a place to curl up and readjust. If that isn’t it, find the thing that will reinvigorate you, that will ground you more firmly in the soil. 

Having plants taught me patience. Kindness. Caring for a small bit of life within the big jungle. Change doesn’t happen in an instant. It happens one leaf at a time. Sir Richard started his small life as one of a hundred plants with a few leaves each among the masses of a nursery. From a sea of green, it was my careful choosing and devoted care that allowed him to grow to what he is today. You may have listened to this whole video and thought to yourself, “Really, who names a plant?” You may also wonder “Who talks about a plant in the third-person?” 

If you do, I would urge you to find your own Sir Richard. Find the thing that breathes around you when you feel like nothing else will. And when you do that, notice what breathes life into your own roots. Recognize that no matter what piles up, you, too, are breathing without realizing, making your own tiny changes no matter the situation.

[tinywordsblog]

The Cats are Here to Stay

At any given point, there is at least one stray cat in the River Lot Bus Stop. On top of that, there are usually about five more scattered in the grass, sleeping on the sidewalks, and hiding in the bushes. This is a fact that can be sturdily relied on. I’ve never known any different.

When people ask me how small California, Pa. is, I tell them that there are only 2 stoplights, one of which I’ve only encountered when leaving town to go to the closest Walmart in the next one over. I tell them that there are really only 4 restaurants, but that’s only if you count Dairy Queen as a restaurant. I tell them that Cal U’s campus is half the town, and that that’s seasonally the main source of life in California. (And, it’s truly the only place I can get a veggie burger without having to cook my own). 

I spend half of my time in this small town, in a small apartment with my partner. Over 2 and a half years, we’ve gotten to know California in bits and pieces. We knew that the town was small, and almost so quiet that you’d expect ghosts around every corner. We frequented our favorite French fry restaurant in town, and we’d stop at the Rite Aid whenever we needed. Other than that, we got to know the campus a lot better. 

So what happens when a pandemic strikes, campus is forced to close, your beloved French fry restaurant is forced to shut down, and the already-small town becomes an even smaller half-town? How do we prepare to live life in a ghost town? 

This is the first year that my partner has had an apartment of his own--5 blocks from Cal U, at the very entrance to California. We moved in days after the University had announced its decision to move its Fall semester entirely online. However, in a time where California should have seemed desolate and empty, I started to fall in love with it. 

Really, this became apparent when I sought to photograph the aforementioned Cal U stray cats. 

As a self-declared cat-lady, my first run-in with these strays was rather exciting. I was on the phone with Tony, asking for directions to his dorm when I noticed them in the bus stop near the Guest Parking Lot. There were about 8 congregated in the enclosed bus stop, and I wondered what made California so special that this number of strays would set up shop here. I’m from a town bigger than Cal, but I’ve never seen so many all at once. So, why here? 

The answer came earlier this week, when I sought to photograph at least one of these parking-lot residents. When I neared the River Lot bus stop--like I said, finding a stray in there was a given--I noticed that I hadn’t been the only one with the strays on my mind. There was in fact a cat bathing in the dwindling evening sun, and he was resting next to what looked to be a D.I.Y. cat house: A storage container with a shakily-carved door, filled with blankets. Just a few feet away was a disposable roasting pan piled high with cat food. 

Inside an obsolete bus stop, in an empty parking lot, in a nearly-empty town, the locals had brought the gift of love and comfort to a pack of stray cats. The cats had been there for so long that I don’t doubt these acts of love have recurred for years. 

As Tony and I made our way across campus--and through town--we photographed what we saw as instances of life and love within it.

When the news first reached us of another virtual semester, we were instantly wary. Wouldn’t California be a ghost town without the students? Without the second half of the town? 

Walking down the main street (which is really Third Street, not Main Street), the world of California, Pa. seemed to open up: The Weeping Willow that covers one of the sidewalks is longer than ever, to the point where you almost have to duck under its umbrella to cross. There are ladders and tools under the stained glass windows behind Old Main, a sign that the art will be preserved. And the art--the marble statues, the intricately carved columns, the checkered flooring--lives on, quietly maintaining the history of the town. In our small apartment, the light still filters through the bathroom window, casting rainbows on the floor, giving us something to look forward to each day. The houses whose windows are plastered with Pride flags, messages of positivity and acceptance, and marks of activism stand strong. Though I’ve never seen the occupants of those homes, I know something of them. Something of how they, too, continue to live and to love. 

And the strays, and the locals that care for those strays from afar. They live on and love on as well. And they do so quietly, gently. Not causing ripples, but subtle waves of comfort and care. 

At one point, we--and I really do mean a very broad, global ‘we’--feared a seemingly inevitable ghost town. The road ahead was empty, abandoned. But along that road, there are bus stops. And in those bus stops are families of stray cats. And in those stray cats are bellies full of food from locals with hearts full of love.

[tinywordsblog]

An Introduction of Sorts

Firsts are scary. First blog posts are equally as scary. I guess when you first meet someone, you start with the basics: 

-My name is Amber.

-I’m 21 years old.

-I’m a college student, studying English Literature, Communication, and Digital Humanities (If you’re interested in Humanities-based coding, check out The Teen Titans Project, a project that I helped to create with two of my darling friends!).

Some more facts, if that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for: 

I’m vegan, and I have been for about a year now. Before that, I was vegetarian for 3 years. Additionally, the proverb is true: If you talk to a vegan for longer than 5 minutes, they’ll let you know they’re vegan. How could I resist, though? Being vegan has made a world of difference in my life and the way I interact with the Earth and its inhabitants. It also means a lot of deeply personal things to me, but you’ll learn those when the time comes. 

Currently, I split my time between one small city: 

and one very, very small town: 

(Excuse the dark photo, I just love how California--not the state but the Pennsylvania town--photographs under the streetlights). 

At risk of a lengthy post, I’ll end with what this Tiny Words blog will hopefully come to mean. I love words, art, and beautiful things. I especially love when I can create all of those things. With this blog, I hope to create a safe space within the Internet, a place to find yourself (and find some peace of mind, too). Welcome, and enjoy.