THE FAT BALLERINA

She wasn't a ballerina, of course. Fat, yes; ballerina, no. A ballerina is the top female dancer of a professional company, top of her craft, dancing all the major rôles in all the major cities: Gisèle, Aurora, Juliette, Odette, that sort of thing. Paris Stockholm London. No, she just did ballet. Lots of it, mind: five lessons a week and practice at home every morning as dawn rose. She performed in the odd children's show: the Queen of Hearts, Cinderella's Ugly Stepmother, that kind of thing. When the show called for someone taller or more substantial than the leading sixteen-year-old, someone to play a parent figure believably, or just plain someone ugly who could do comedy and look, well - big. And one day she met a man and he didn't notice her (because she was fat) but they became jolly good chums (because she was nice and vitally alive and fun to be around) and, inevitably, they fell in love, she developed self-confidence, she lost weight dramatically and discovered that under all the lard she was actually beautiful after all, so she started using make-up seriously and they got married and lived happily ever after. Of course. But all that is merely the detail: what really matters is how she lost all that weight - or why, or what catalysed it. Because of course, she had always carried that possibility within her, and she had hitherto always ignored the knowledge of that possibility. So why did she do it now, and why not before? That is the crux of it, and of course you want to know so that you could do it the same way and get thin and beautiful and married and happy too, don't you? But it doesn't work that way, like with Christ - you know, he said be perfect even as I am perfect, and they all thought he meant follow the sandal, in other words, be celibate and fast in the desert and wander round telling the world to love each other, and, ideally, walk on water. But what if he meant more - ask questions of the learned cliques (and the dumb ones) even when it pissed them off? Study under wise and knowledgeable scholars from far-off lands and different apparent religions? Break the law if common sense and need appeared to indicate that it would be best? Live according to one's own very different truth, even to the point of seemingly opposing most of the truths everyone thought most important? Allow one's own power to resonate through one from one's own centre, find one's own path - and then put up with all those crowds of lazy or desperate seekers trying to grab the secret and the power off you and repeat it themselves without the hard and harrowing parts? Four-step Christianity was there right at the start, wasn't it? To be continued

Cursed with Both Head and Heart

Saturday 29 May 2010 The Guardian Hay Festival has reignited my enthusiasm for digital communication with its "Most Beautiful Tweet" competition, being judged by Stephen Fry - poor lad, he'll be inundated - and they had the good taste to retweet one of my attempts. There followed, of course, some hours of roaming around twitter - particularly the Hay Festival tweets - wishing I were there, wishing I'd made the short trip there when I lived in Minstead, New Forest, wishing I gathered my energies up a little more often to get to that sort of thing when available here, where I am. I had toyed with the idea of calling this blog "How I Stopped Being Fat", as I intend to write quite a lot about that, but I have resisted allowing my life to be dominated and destroyed by being fat, so I decided not to allow it to dominate my blog either. Anyone tempted to put off your living until you're the perfect shape or weight - please don't! a) because you might not ever, and then you'd look silly, b) because most things are just as possible at any weight - in the last few years, while weighing close to, and then over, 100kg, I have had two children, passed two ballet exams with Merit (Grades 6 and 7 RAD), earned a PhD in French literature, home-schooled my children, appeared in Fiddler on the Roof as Yente, danced on TV (The Topp Twins), sung in a choir, written a novel, impressed Iggy McGovern with one of my poems. Do I think Big is Beautiful? No, not particularly. I don't think Big is Better, and my size is starting to restrict some of my physical activities - and I'm certainly not dancing as well as I would be 50kg lighter - but I'm still dancing - and I am often fatigued and my immunity is low. But that's only a part of who I am, and, like one of the authors of The Bitch in the House, I have got on and done the things I wanted to do, and generally done them rather well. 'Nuff said. In a future blog I will explain the "Head and Heart" reference from Dorothy L. Sayers, and I plan to write a weekly "column," rather formally, as well as odd jottings whenever I feel like it. Hopefully I'll also learn how to attach photos, links, and so forth. I leave you with an urging to watch Stephen Fry's "vimeo" on "Things I wish I'd Known at 18" on a website called something like (but don't quote me on this), "vimeo.com." Also, for the more frivolous among you, see his "Boos" - one for each episode of QI - find the link on his twitter site - they're up to number 11 at latest count - basically, you get a 30-second audio recording of the audience yelling an unusual word (for this series, all beginning with H), and you get to tweet the word you thought you heard to Stephen Fry. And if you're right, you win ... a sense of quiet satisfaction. The two I've heard so far were, if I remember rightly, "hamfutter" and "harquelbutt" - no, that second one's not right, but something like that. The current one is a word coined by Bosie, and to me it sounds like "horsellum." And to follow the Hay Festival and see what they come up with as "Most Beautiful Twitter." Adios, and, as we are increasingly learning to say in our Spanish studies, Hasta luego, hasta pronto, and also à bientôt, yours (often!) sincerely, Teufel.