Granny Dodson was a tiny woman who loved cat t-shirts, canned biscuits, and spanking our butts with a fly swatter. I loved to make her laugh and affectionately called her Salt n Peppa head. Her house was stocked with RC Cola, moon pies, oatmeal cookies with creme, and a quiet kind of love. She hid money under her vinyl placemats, and every now and again, Ina Mae pulled out a twenty to put in my pocket.
Saturday nights growing up, we’d sleep on pallets on the floor and rise to the smell of bacon on Sunday mornings. She and my grandpa Lewis would sit in retro rockers from Kmart to wave at passersby while our legs dangled in the air, enjoying the swing he’d made and roped to the oak tree.
They were good neighbors, and that’s what I’ll always remember about their place in the world. Granny worked until she retired as a janitor at a local hospital, and about a decade before she died, she’d have seizures or end up in need of care. I visited while I was home during a really bad spell. My memory is fuzzy on the timeline, but the soul work before me was learning to love myself, to love my body.
I remember staring at her while the nurses changed her. She lay turned on her right side with her left shoulder flat across the bed, creating a perfect wave of curves. Ina stood a foot shorter than me, but we have the same body type. Smaller waist, chest, and hips for days, thick thighs that ain’t never told a lie, and until that moment, I’d never thought of my body as beautiful.
I couldn’t believe how striking she was, in a hospital gown and underwear, her full lips, and grey bob, seventy-something years of life pulsating through her veins. My grandmother, near the end, teaching me to love without a word, teaching me to accept myself, telling the truth to my bones, to my marrow, through her naked vulnerability.
She passed herself down to me, just like my Grandma Ayers, great-grandmother Lucy, and mama Anne—rivers of love and mercy, beauty and brutality, tenacity and timidity. We are here — past, present, and future — learning to love.
bell hooks said, “Women who learn to love represent the greatest threat to the patriarchal status quo.”
The disconnection from our ancestors, communities, and bodies is by design. We are easier to use, control, and discard when we fret over how we fit in, what we look like, and who still likes us.
Love is so much bigger than that. It’s expansive and glorious. It is freedom and justice. It is community and embodiment.
Generation after generation, we are building for the future. My daughter is my favorite reminder that I want more for women, every age, every stage.
We are told what is beautiful.
We can resist it. You are stunning in the skin you’re in.
We are conditioned to love others and forsake ourselves.
We can unlearn it. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
We are abused and taught that we are only as good as we can please or pleasure.
We can heal it. You are not an object or a project.
We are coerced into conformity, silenced, or shut out for daring to be different.
We can change it. Speak and dare, anyway.
We are divorced from our desires, disconnected from our bodies, to survive.
We can be made whole. You are worthy of nurture and care.
We are sent into the invisible abyss for aging, losing ability, or choosing a different path.
We can welcome it. Anonymity is a gift.
Love is a lifelong journey. From birth to death, we are always learning to love. You loving yourself is a precious gift. I hope you’ll go gentle and stay strong. And I hope you’ll give ‘em hell.
As we close this series, I want to leave you with a blessing and a prayer for you.
May you come home to yourself. Let the goodness and light of the people who love you enter into any shame and fear that holds you. Take courage to forgive and let go of those who could not — and cannot — show up for you the way you needed or wanted. Remember the people who showed you love, taught you that you were beautiful, and made you laugh until you cried. You belong to something bigger, a long legacy of resilient, beautiful people. As you change, as you grow, may you know every good thing God has to give you while you make room for love.
Thank you for journeying with me. See you next week.
Love,
Ashley
Beautiful writing, on important themes.
I will reread this one again and again. It's holy work to love our bodies.