I was never poised. I didn’t know what to do with my body except when I was sleeping.
I don’t remember all the nasty things my older brothers said to me as I hit puberty. But “Lynney’s busting out all over” is one I do remember.
I didn’t know what to do with my breasts when they arrived, so I pretended I didn’t have them. Unfortunately, that process turned me into a schlump with terrible posture.
When I was around fourteen, James, a boy I saw at church, told me that if I did one thing, I’d be a knock-out and no boy would be able to resist me, including him.
Why did I even care what James thought?
I was not attracted to James, but I couldn’t resist finding out what that one thing was.
So I invited James to Sunday dinner with my family, at which he was perfectly polite and attentive.
Then we went upstairs to my bedroom, and he told me what that one thing was. He said the one thing I needed to do was to get some new bras. Evidently the one I was wearing allowed my breasts to sag.
After he said that, I could no longer bear to have James in my house or to spend another second in his presence, but I endured until he left and then I locked myself in my room for the rest of the day.
Years later I saw James in the subway car on my way to art classes at Cooper Union. I was in old jeans and a paint-splotched sweatshirt, carrying my art supplies. James was in a cheap suit, carrying his briefcase. We inhabited different worlds.
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I wear clothes that hide my shape—the looser and baggier the better. Men were pleasantly surprised when they first saw me with my clothes off.
The only time I felt comfortable walking around in my body was at a nudist camp in South Jersey one weekend. Without clothes, there didn’t seem to be anything special about body parts, one way or the other.
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My sister Laura tried to cure me of the schlump one year by telling me to stand up straight every time she saw me, but that instruction never lasted.
I still walk around in a schlump until I pass a mirror, and then I straighten up. The only way for me to have good posture is to be consciously trying, as I do when I’m working out to my strength-training video. The leader keeps reminding me, “shoulders back.” And it is easier to breathe that way.
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It doesn’t make sense to think people won’t notice you walking by if you schlump. In fact, you will be more noticeable as an object of pity. But like any dumb creature that believes no one can see it if it hides its head, I suck my neck into my shell and do the same.