every time i see people trying to normalize fatness by sexualizing it i think of that post thats like “what are you gonna tell a fucking 12 y/o? dont cry dude youre so thick? stop it” bc like. truly. not only do i personally not want my body to be sexualized lol but also its so harmful to kids like?? being fat is normal in all contexts not just when youre in lingerie with a beat face looking pouty at the camera like can we talk about the variances in human bodies without resorting to making them normal only when theyre sexy, my god
your body is good, not because it is desirable to others, but because you live in it
“When Daddy comes in, he carries you to bed. Is there anything you feel like you could eat, Pokey? Anything at all?
All you can imagine putting in your mouth is a cold plum, one with really tight skin on the outside but gum-shocking sweetness inside. And he and your mother discuss where he might find some this late in the season. Mother says hell I don’t know. Further north, I’d guess.
The next morning, you wake up in your bed and sit up. Mother says, Pete, I think she’s up. He hollers in, You ready for breakfast, Pokey. Then he comes in grinning, still in his work clothes from the night before. He’s holding a farm bushel. The plums he empties onto the bed river toward you through folds in the quilt. If you stacked them up, they’d fill the deepest bin at the Piggly Wiggly.
Damned if I didn’t get the urge to drive to Arkansas last night, he says.
Your mother stands behind him saying he’s pure USDA crazy.
Fort Smith, Arkansas. Found a roadside stand out there with a feller selling plums. And I says, Buddy, I got a little girl sick back in Texas. She’s got a hanker for plums and ain’t nothing else gonna do.
It’s when you sink your teeth into the plum that you make a promise. The skin is still warm from riding in the sun in Daddy’s truck, and the nectar runs down your chin.
And you snap out of it. Or are snapped out of it. Never again will you lay a hand against yourself, not so long as there are plums to eat and somebody-anybody-who gives enough of a damn to haul them to you. So long as you bear the least nibblet of love for any other creature in this dark world, though in love portions are never stingy. There are no smidgens or pinches, only rolling abundance. That’s how you acquire the resolution for survival that the coming years are about to demand. You don’t earn it. It’s given.”
excerpt from Cherry by Mary Karr, context being after a suicide attempt at age 13
Some context: Texas and Arkansas share a corner border. Now, Texas is FECKING HUGE and there are many, many parts of Texas that cannot visit Arkansas overnight, but there are parts where it’s no trouble at all.
However, those places of Texas that are close to Arkansas, do not include “close to Fort Smith, Arkansas.”
The closest Texas gets to Fort Smith is about 185 miles (about 300km), at “a little closer than Texarkana.” (Dallas, fwiw, is about 275 miles/450km from Fort Smith.)
So the dad in this story drove at least SEVEN HOURS round trip, to pick up a bushel of plums for his little girl, in the hope that some almost-out-of-season fruit would convince her to go on living.
Okay.
It’s bigger than this.
According to Wikipedia, the poet Mary Karr was born in 1955 and grew up in Groves, Texas and “lived there until she moved to Los Angeles in 1972.” So she would have been there when she was 13 and attempted suicide.
According to Google Maps, the shortest driving distance between Groves, TX and Fort Smith, AR is 439 miles (or 706 km for metric using folks).
That’s almost 8 hours of driving.
Almost 16 hours roundtrip.
(I assume he broke every speed limit he could.)
That’s how much this man loved his daughter.
May we all be worthy of such love.
May we all be capable of giving such love.
May we all have people in our lives with which we can share this love.
These bitches are hiding cotton candy in my walls and expecting me to fall for this, ok 🙄. I know you just don’t want to share it, and that’s too fucking bad
ALT
