Not Mary Janes

This is for my younger sister, Erica.

***

She always said that I had the hands of a baker, large palms for kneading dough, round fingers for thumbprint cookies, perfect for creases with jam.

And she had the hands of a piano player, her fingers long, angular, symmetrical. She took lessons, but gave up after a year, because the teacher smelt of burnt coffee, and her bathroom was way too purple.

When we were twelve and ten, respectively, we measured each other’s legs and lamented the stretch marks that were forming where our hips were widening. Boys noticed, too—not our marks, but our hips.

Meanwhile, her arms, long and sparsely freckled, reached skyward, and my own arms, short and soft, clung to my sides. We carried ourselves un-observantly. We didn’t notice boys, but we noticed girls. We noticed their hair, parted off to the side, clipped neatly. We noticed their eye brows, drawn with care, stray hairs ripped from their pores or combed to conform to neat little arches. We noticed the small feet, pushed delicately into Mary Janes.

But we were not Mary Janes. Mary Janes in sizes 11 and 9, respectively, made us look like clowns. We stuck to what we knew and understood, and for a long time, that meant that we stuck to hating our bodies.

But our hands eventually survived our hatred. And later, my breasts survived. Her legs. Bit by bit, body part by body part, we tried to salvage everything. Her crooked teeth were next. “David Bowie has crooked teeth,” she said, and that made everything better. After that, my nose made the cut. “It’s not too big, not too small,” I said. Then we noticed our own eye brows, how they lacked distinct shape and conformity. We noticed our mouths, big, toothy, prominent. We noticed how other girls noticed us. We noticed our height, our long arms finally reaching upward together, perfect for hugs.

I was fourteen when I realized that my body was my first home. It didn’t have to be a cage. It didn’t have to be an obstacle. It housed my brain, my spirit, my heart, but it was more than just a container. It could be warm and safe and strong. It could protect the ones I loved.

My sister and I still talk about our bodies. And we still sometimes complain. But they are and were the first things we ever owned, and we understand that now. We have done more than just notice. We have celebrated.