On the making of a size acceptance movie

Last Sunday was the first Size Acceptance Salon hosted by Ivan of Fat in NYC. I hope that this is the first of many of these dial-in Salons. About his reasons for starting the Salon Ivan says:

I’d like folks that are brand new to the Size Acceptance Community to have a place to talk to others about their newfound experiences. I’d like contributions and guidance from the more experienced folks of this movement.

There is a way to a happier life, a greater sense of worthiness, and the reclaiming of yourself as a valuable, complete person no matter what you weigh! That is what this group is about.

I am not looking for controversy, I am looking to create community around these issues – issues I feel very passionate about. I am looking to create community between the different segments of the Fat/Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size communities that can sometimes be in conflict. There are numerous facets of “Fat Acceptance,” and different subgroups of the movement can disagree, despite a consistent attempt at uniformity throughout the movement. It is my hope to create opportunities for the inspiring and enlightening exchange of ideas around fat acceptance, whether or not everyone considers them “just right.”

His first guest was Kira Nerusskaya who has been filming the documentary Fat Girls Float for more than three years. I had the extreme pleasure of being asked by Ivan to conduct the interview. I hope to have an audio clip for you this week, but until then I can tell you that we had a delightful conversation. Kira is knowledgeable and passionate about the fat acceptance community and being an activist for positive social change.

You probably know by now that Kira needs to raise some cash for the next phase of production. She is still filming and there may be another fundraising project next Summer to complete the theatrical trailer but right now she needs funds for some technical bits. Please consider making a donation through the fundraising website Kickstarter. You can contribute as little as $1.00 and a donation of $500 gets you a producer credit, an autographed picture of runway model Velvet D’Amour, and an invitation to a private pool party where Kira promises to wear a bikini.

Here is a one minute video with some interview clips and then a quick but silent video of Velvet walking the runway.

Winner of $50 Kiyonna Gift Certificate

Congratulations to The Asian Pear! Her comment was chosen using a highly scientific process to randomly generate a number through a complicated system of algorithms. OK! So I really just clicked the button on Random.org

Pear – has been contacted by e-mail. Her response to winning? “Oh my gosh really? ME?!?! Thank you! I’ve never won anything before. I am DEFINITELY getting the dress I had my eye on now.”

And please check out her blog – she just bought the cutest snow boots at Payless. I think I’m going to go try them on myself.

Thank you everyone for your participation. It was so much fun to see what everyone wanted. There will be more contests and giveaways every month so stay tuned.

Birthday reflections: cancer, aging and mom.

Yesterday, October 28, 2009, I turned 42. I barely noticed when I turned 40, but this birthday is full of meaning and self-reflection.

I have been writing this blog since 2006. I have achieved many of my goals. I have many readers, I have connected with a wonderful community of bloggers, and I created This Lush Life, a shopping website primarily focused on fashionable clothes for full-figured women.

There is still more to do. I’d like to see more fashion segments on television including plus sizes, and to see those segments styled much more fashionably than they are currently. Also, I am struggling with the technology behind my new website design and I would like to just wake up tomorrow morning with a deep and profound insight into how to make it work so that I can get it up and running. I’d like to see people of all sizes treated with dignity and respect and have affordable health care.

I have personal, non-website related goals as well. I’d like to publish my fiction – hell I want to be famous for my fiction truth be told. I want to continue traveling the world – see more countries and visit friends overseas more often. I’d like to go hear live music more often and read more books. This year I am the happiest I have ever been in my life. I like myself, I like my appearance, and I like my husband. I hope that I never feel old, that I continue to improve my communication skills so that I can be more kind and loving, and I’d like to do more charity work.

But overall, I am most focused these days on my relationship with my mother and her fight against a rare form of Lymphoma. Over the years she and I have been frequently combative and our relationship has been filled with angry recriminations for unjust behavior on both our parts.

Experiencing her strength and determination through chemotherapy is helping me find a sweetness and a sense of calm acceptance in my feelings for her that I have never felt before. Over the last few weeks I have begun to confront that my life, my actual existence, is a direct result of two people wanting to have another human being to share their love with, and this has been a humbling realization. A friend recently asked me to describe the ways that she and I are similar and truthfully, while I have fought this for decades, she and I are so much alike that it would be a shorter list to describe the ways we are not alike.

So on my birthday this year I ask not what my mom is going to do for me, but what I can do for her. It seems that what she wants now is all that she has ever wanted – for me to be happy and to occasionally spend some fun time with her. And I am finding more and more that hanging out with my mom is a very good way to spend the day.

The Quality of Your Life

I am a huge fan of the work of Paulo Coelho. Not only is he an amazing storyteller but he is a deep soul and the person I most want to have dinner with because he is my imaginary boyfriend and the least he can do for his imaginary girlfriend is take me to dinner, right?

Paulo interacts quite a lot with folks who visit his website both with videos of himself asking questions and offering insights, as well as being available through Twitter. This week he has posted on his blog the following video asking his site visitors about the quality of their lives. I’ve decided to answer him here.

I chose the name of this blog as a way to verbalize my life philosophy. I celebrate the curves in my life as much as I celebrate my curvy figure because I believe that everything that happens in life is right. And the quality of my life is directly connected to my having the viewpoint that everything that happens in life is right.

Life is right whether I am happy, sad, or angry. Regardless of whether I had a happy childhood or not, or whether my particular body shape is considered to be most desirable in our society or not — any and all possible experiences that are available in the human experience are right, and according to the laws of physics, could even be considered perfect.

For the most part, people think that the definition of perfection means the exclusion of any experience that is wrong. “If only I hadn’t burned the roast, the dinner party would have been perfect.” But I don’t agree with this exclusionary viewpoint. I believe that perfection includes all possible experiences, even a burnt roast. You are perfect and I am perfect. I do not mean to say “I’m OK, You’re OK” like the 1970’s self help book, which falls somewhat short of perfection. I mean to say that you are absolutely perfect. Your experience of bad and good is attributable to your own judgment of your experience, and perfection includes all experiences no matter how you judge them.

When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.
—Abraham Lincoln, Inscription on Pollyanna’s brooch, a gift from her father

I have been accused of having a Pollyanna viewpoint, but this is not true and I do not share that character’s naive belief in the inherent good of mankind. I watch the news and I see that there are people in the world who cause suffering in others. I do not expect people to necessarily be nice, and I always expect people to be exactly the way that they are. Then it is my responsibility, or even an opportunity, to enjoy the experience of relating with whomever I meet.

SEEING THE EXTRAORDINARY IN THE MUNDANE

Believe me, this is not always so easy. It is a very real challenge to see the good in this world when confronted with war, pestilence, disease, hunger, bullies, lousy drivers and my mom’s chemo treatments. But I continue to see the world as a good place and see that it is filled with loving, kind, thoughtful people who want to make the world even better. Even when terrible things happen it is still a perfect life that I am living.

As I interpret the above quote by Abraham Lincoln, I can either spend my days focusing on the bad, which will raise my awareness of bad and this will, in turn create more bad or, I can spend my days focusing my attention on the good and this will, in turn create more good.

How I enjoy a high quality of life:

1. Practicing eternal vigilance in seeing the good in people and events.
2. I am thankful for the skin I’m in and so I begin every day by standing naked front of my mirror and I say a minimum of three nice things about my body from the neck down.
3. When I notice that I am feeling a bit gloomy I make sure to connect with a friend and share a laugh.
4. I spend time out in nature. Taking walks, country drives, sitting under a tree. Whatever speed – I find that it is vital that I am out near trees as often as possible.
5. I do these things because I deserve to live a life filled with joy.

So my dear readers I put the question to you. What is on your list of things that impact the quality of your life?

As promised – Home Addition Madness

I am so excited about this addition that I am going to show you pics even though the living room is a complete and utter filthy mess. Mom, please forgive me for putting pictures of my messy home on my blog.
As promised, pictures of my house before construction, during and well…let’s face it, I guess we are still in the “during” stage since we still haven’t put carpet down in the new bedrooms. Although we have moved our bed into the Master Bedroom for now because I just couldn’t sleep in the living room one more night.

The big handsome muscular man is my darling husband. He truly does “husband” really really well. I mean seriously, he has actually built me an addition. We certainly couldn’t afford it and yet, he found a way. Pulling in favors (it helps to have family members who are professional contractors) and picking up side work, he figured out a way to make it happen. He’s my favorite husband. OK…he’s my only husband but I think you get my meaning. Disclaimer: Other working men seen seen in photos are not my husband, although I certainly did enjoy having them in my home building my addition. Thank you working men.

Our house was built in the 1950’s in a small summer lake community about an hour drive north of Manhattan, which is where I am from. When Jim bought the house (5 years before I met him) it had no insulation. It also didn’t have a vaulted ceiling with exposed beams (he put those in), skylights or beautiful hardwood floors. He did a lot before I got there and he firmly believed that he was done with the back breaking labor of home renovation. Silly man.

You can see in the exterior pics the original logs that are the walls of our house, now covered with pretty pretty cedar siding. Inside pics show where we broke through the living room wall to create two doorways to our new bedrooms. The house was 800 sq. ft. and is now nearly 1200 sq. ft. The house is still not a palace, but it’s no longer claustrophobic. Also, the tiny bathroom (you can just make out the sink) will be moved to the larger room that had been our bedroom (and yes there will be a whirlpool tub) now with living room closets on either side of the door. The former bathroom will be demo’d and a hallway leading to the backdoor will happily take its place. No longer will everyone tromp through the dining room to get to the backyard. Yay!

What I haven’t shown you is what the interior looked like before we took down the bedroom walls. Seriously, it was just hideous. Dark, claustrophobic, dismal and icky. You walked in the front door to look directly at the toilet. On the left was two tiny bedrooms and on the right the kitchen and dining room. The whole house felt like I lived in a closet. It isn’t so much the square footage that was the problem, it was the poor layout of the rooms. This is no longer an issue!

You can see in the interior pics the two closets that we have gained in the living room (on either side of the soon to be installed new bathroom), in addition to a large closet in each bedroom. Houses that were built in the 1950’s as summer bungalows not only had no need of insulation, but they also had no need of closets. People either used trunks, or a wardrobe, or did something else entirely, and they had way fewer clothes than we do these days. My house had no closets. Zero, zip, nada. The means that I have been making use of laundry baskets as makeshift drawers for the past five years. I-am-so-excited-about-closets. Seriously.

Hang in for the last pic in the series because we really do clean up pretty good. You may commence drooling. Everyone is invited over for a sleepover. I’m probably gonna need extra blankets…