Me: Strong Bodies

Here is one of my favorite poems:

The Bonsai Tree

The bonsai tree

in the attractive pot

could have grown eighty feet tall

on the side of a mountain

till split by lightning.

But a gardener

carefully pruned it.

It is nine inches high.

Every day as he

whittles back the branches

It is your nature

to be small and cozy

domestic and weak;

how lucky, little tree,

to have a pot to grow in.

With living creatures

one must begin very early

to dwarf their growth:

the bound feet,

the crippled brain,

the hair in curlers,

the hands you

love to touch.

-Marge Piercy

I heard this poem for the first time in high school. Before then I hadn't known that a Bonsai tree is a regular tree that has been kept in a pot and pruned so that it stays small and ornamental. Essentially, it's growth has been stunted in order to achieve a standard of perceived beauty by the male (my interpretation) gardener. My interpretation of the poem: women are kept from their full potential by having to conform to chauvinistic, piggish men. Not surprisingly, this poem made my blood boil.

Lately, though, I started thinking that maybe I am the gardener. Maybe I am stunting my own growth and limiting myself in my attempts to achieve my idea of beauty. As I diet, wear ridiculously tall high-heels, and refuse to the leave the house whenever I think my face is bloated, I am "[whittling] back [my] branches;" I am choosing to letting the pursuit of beauty keep me from being me.

Now this self-realization doesn't mean I'm going to start scarfing Big Macs or throw out my heels and Cover Girl mascara. But I worry that I, and probably most women, get so caught up in looking young, in having perfect bodies, in wearing the latest styles, that we land ourselves in a pot that keeps us small in character. We leave no time for development spiritually or mentally; we never grow tall and strong.

"If you feel your value lies only in being merely decorative I fear that someday you might find yourself believing that's all you really are. Time erodes all such beauty, but what it cannot diminish is the wonderful workings of your mind."

STRONG WOMEN VALUE THEIR BODIES