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i got a perfect body
but sometimes i forget
(folding chair, regina spektor)
i always stop and listen when she sings "i got a perfect body". then a sort of diagram of the perfect body flashes through my head, exactly the right proportions, a pleasing symmetry, flawlessly toned, and i frown because wow regina, that's a bold claim to make. how does she know her body is perfect? sometimes i think: hm, maybe it's so perfect that wherever she goes people just come up to her and tell her.
i got a perfect body
'cuz my eyelashes catch my sweat
yes they do, they do
then it hits me, every single time i listen to this song. in the next line it hits me that the image of 'perfect' reigning in my mind is just one - practically unreal - way of perfect the body can be. i love this song, it slaps me in the face with my superficiality every single time. we all inhabit perfection. it's a sentiment a number of my religious friends express more often, that we needn't doubt that we are perfect just the way we are, because of the way we were made, which is to say by god. that we are so beautifully constructed that our eyelashes catch our sweat, that our bodies do what we need them to in the most strangely graceful of ways, is all of our perfection.
sunday, it was the day after shao yuan's national competition, we went to visit great-grandfather after yuany's math lesson, it was a ten-minute walk from the car to the grave, he was so exhausted. it makes no difference that in december 2010 the top of his head finally reached the height that mine did and then surpassed it - he's my baby brother, especially when he stumbles to his last step, holds out his arms and asks for a piggyback ride. i carry him the last bit of the way. after we were done hanging out with great-grandfather, after we had bowed over the last joss sticks and planted them in the dirt of his grave and it was time to go, yuan hopped onto my back like he used to all the time when we were little (me little and him littler than me). as i stepped easily over anthills and random roots, shifting his weight on my hips from time to time, i was struck deep with the truth of it, my 'perfect' legs aren't longer or skinnier, my perfect legs are: strong enough to carry brother's weight with mine through the forest.
but sometimes i forget
(folding chair, regina spektor)
i always stop and listen when she sings "i got a perfect body". then a sort of diagram of the perfect body flashes through my head, exactly the right proportions, a pleasing symmetry, flawlessly toned, and i frown because wow regina, that's a bold claim to make. how does she know her body is perfect? sometimes i think: hm, maybe it's so perfect that wherever she goes people just come up to her and tell her.
i got a perfect body
'cuz my eyelashes catch my sweat
yes they do, they do
then it hits me, every single time i listen to this song. in the next line it hits me that the image of 'perfect' reigning in my mind is just one - practically unreal - way of perfect the body can be. i love this song, it slaps me in the face with my superficiality every single time. we all inhabit perfection. it's a sentiment a number of my religious friends express more often, that we needn't doubt that we are perfect just the way we are, because of the way we were made, which is to say by god. that we are so beautifully constructed that our eyelashes catch our sweat, that our bodies do what we need them to in the most strangely graceful of ways, is all of our perfection.
sunday, it was the day after shao yuan's national competition, we went to visit great-grandfather after yuany's math lesson, it was a ten-minute walk from the car to the grave, he was so exhausted. it makes no difference that in december 2010 the top of his head finally reached the height that mine did and then surpassed it - he's my baby brother, especially when he stumbles to his last step, holds out his arms and asks for a piggyback ride. i carry him the last bit of the way. after we were done hanging out with great-grandfather, after we had bowed over the last joss sticks and planted them in the dirt of his grave and it was time to go, yuan hopped onto my back like he used to all the time when we were little (me little and him littler than me). as i stepped easily over anthills and random roots, shifting his weight on my hips from time to time, i was struck deep with the truth of it, my 'perfect' legs aren't longer or skinnier, my perfect legs are: strong enough to carry brother's weight with mine through the forest.
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