Good morning, everyone!
I’ve been thinking a lot about my own life deconstructions and how they relate to this newsletter. I have found a lot of joy and healing in writing about body issues and documenting my attempts to get out of my own head. I actually do think I’ve made a lot of progress, and I want to talk a bit about how.
Living far away from Utah.
I love Utah for a lot of reasons: the proximity to nature, the mountains, the mountains, the Salt Lake sprawl, my friends and family, the mountains, the dry heat, and the mountains. And…I grew up in a homogenous culture that always had me comparing and contrasting myself to the people around me. Growing up, I was always evaluating if I looked good enough, acted well enough, or lived up to the standards presented to me. A surveillance culture like that can breed of lot of sameness to feel safe, and so trends there felt monumental vs. basically inconsequential in D.C.
Half of my social media feed is inundated with Utah culture. I see the long, loose wavy hairstyle, the constant talk about getting enough protein in our diets, the many small businesses partnering with influencers to shill their water bottles and blankets and makeup products. The entrepreneurship is all at once inspiring and headache-inducing. And it often means that people are buying the same things, decorating the same ways, and dressing themselves up in similar styles. (It’s all cute and useful and helpful! Just not my style.)
When I step away from the Utah noise, I find it easier to not care what I look like, or how I’m achieving what I look like. Walking around D.C. reminds me how diverse society can be, and that includes people’s clothing, diet, activity levels, interests, etc. Of course, not everyone in Utah is the same, and I don’t mean to say that. I only mean that it’s easier to be like everyone else when everyone else is doing the prescribed “right” things in their culture. In D.C., there is no “right” way, because people come from all walks of life, and are often separated from their families and therefore required to search outside their familiar zones for community and acceptance. And often our differences are what help us find a home here.
I’ve been able to extricate myself from my body objectivity in new ways since living here. Basically, the only times I’m thinking about what I look like are when I feel like I’ve really nailed an outfit, and I’m excited to see how it feels out in the world. Otherwise, I’m comfortable walking around with no makeup, no thought to what I’m wearing, because I’m just one of many fascinating faces in the crowd.
Processing through writing
What a surprise! After spending all of last year writing about body dysmorphia and style and fashion post-Mormonism, I’ve somewhat cleared my system. There’s power to simply saying anxieties out loud (or writing them out loud).
All this to say that…
I think continuing to stay in the headspace of body issues would actually just hurt me.
There’s this idea that I learned from The Body Keeps the Score that when you’re traumatized and unable to process that trauma, you keep putting yourself in situations that remind you of your trauma, because it actually feels comfortable to be uncomfortable.
The book talks about Vietnam veterans who come home, feel lost, and get into a hobby like motorcycle riding. Because when they’re on their bikes, they feel a similar adrenaline that they likely experienced during the war. It’s not that they like feeling that fear and anxiety, it’s that they’ve felt that adrenaline for so long that leaving it behind is foreign and unimaginable.
My trauma is definitely much lower on the spectrum of traumatic events, but I think even as writing about my body issues helped me, it also kept me in a space of uncomfortable comfort. This is not to say I’ll never revisit these ideas, but I do think I’m ready to move on to other topics for the time being. Perhaps in the same way that getting physical space from Utah helped me process my relationship to myself and my body, maybe getting some mental space could help me fully heal it.
So!
I hinted at a little project I want to do that involves baking in my last newsletter. Now that I’m less interested in how my body looks, I can devote more time to figuring out what I can do with it. I’ve always loved baking, and I love how I get lost in the movement of it all. It was one of my goals to bake more this year, and so I’m starting a new little series (the cadence will vary depending on my time and bandwidth) called What I Wore and What I Brought.
Here’s the thing with baking: I only live with my husband and my cat. My husband doesn’t love sweet things, and my cat simply cannot partake of anything other than hydrolized protein (she’s somehow allergic to animal protein???? And she’s also a cat, so I would never feed her baked goods anyway) so I know my bakes won’t be consumed by my housemates. And I certainly don’t want to be in charge of eating everything I make. So, my idea with this series is to bake every time I have a girls’ night, or a cozy night in with friends, or if I go to my shared office space and feel like bringing something. And if all else fails, there’s always neighbors I can bombard with gifts! Hence, the “What I Brought” part of the title.
For the “What I Wore” part of the title, though I’m moving on from writing about body issues (for the most part), I still love putting together outfits. So, I’ll document both! What I’m wearing to the event, and what I brought as an offering to my beloved community.
And henceforth, I present to you a silly little video I made of one of my go-to bakes and the outfit I wore the day after I made them. If you’re a New York Times Cooking subscriber, look up the Rosemary Shortbread bars. I feel kind of weird posting the recipe here because New York Times Cooking is subscription-based (but pretty cheap for what it’s worth). But I do spell out the routine/measurements in the video if you want to take notes. Seriously, this bake is difficult to mess up, and it’s always a crowd-pleaser. The shortbread base is so simple and perfect, I might experiment with other add-ins next time I try it. Maybe orange zest and chocolate chips instead of rosemary? Who’s to say?!
I hope you enjoy this little experiment. My hope is that I get…better at it, and eventually have the space to get more creative with the bakes, outfits, and video-making. Thanks in advance for letting me carve out my little internet space that feels authentic to me!
Covered in flour,
Abi
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