I whine about my thighs to a friend as we dry off on the beach and she lambasts me for not focusing more on what my body has done for me. She won’t hear of food points or detoxes or using the word “treat” when talking about chocolate. She pish poshes weighing scales and measuring tapes. She is relentless and stoic. Women are looking out for each other more in this way these days.
I look around at the seaside at all the bodies, at all the limbs and skin, bellies and bums. They carry us into the cold, green water to be tossed around. We are never as aware of our bodies as we are in a lively ocean. Our bodies, in those moments, are a means of survival and pleasure.
There is a man who is hitting for 90 years old, making his way into the water with his two daughters, themselves more than 60, each holding an elbow. I can see his ribs, his curved back, his mouth agape, his eyes alight as a bubbling wave licks his feet. Look what his body is doing for him. She’s right, I tell myself. My body is amazing! How wonderful it is to be so flippin’ evolved.
Except when I’m going out the door, I catch a sight of myself in the mirror, and the light is beaming off my chin hair. My one wiry golden chin hair, centred under my jaw. Sometimes I pluck it every day, sometimes it won’t appear for a month.
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All this body positivity is making me worry that I will have to keep my real feelings for this follicle a deep, evil secret. Surprisingly, my friend does not try to get me to consider this growth with appreciative marvel. Maybe it is because this is an age-related development that we allow ourselves to talk about it in an observational way.
Now in our mid-40s, we bond over our bodies changing. Not only does she let me remark about my singular chin hair but she tells me often about her own collection. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say to her, because I can’t see it, not because I’m trying to plamás or censor her.
Until I do see it. “Look!” she cries. She tugs at a small tuft at the side of her face as we are waiting to cross at the traffic lights, lifting the skin to a pink peak. The green man is flashing, but I have buckled over with laughter, crossing my legs and trying to get into a tight squat so that I will not wet myself. I mentally note that I need to get back to doing my Kegel exercises when I brush my teeth.
She tells me that a matter-of-fact neighbour of hers reached over and ripped one of the hairs out of her face mid-conversation and said, “We women need to look after each other.” A brave thing to do when even telling people that they have something in their teeth is stomach-churningly difficult.
We talk about laser options (limited because the hair is too fair) and our level of interest in pursuing them (limited because we’ve enough to be dealing with). As it happens, I am on my way to deal with a different hair-ea with the help of an enthusiastic young woman brandishing a stick dipped in hot sparkly purple wax. She will tell me to turn over, and I will dig my fingernails into my palms while she babbles on about her boyfriend’s family, and I will cling to her every word gratefully.
Perhaps this is another act of disrespect to my body, drilled into me in the 1990s. We millennials were encouraged to be close to hairless, to pluck and wax and laser and thread. Now I slap the tweezers out of my 15-year-old’s hands and tell her she’ll never forgive herself if she touches her beautiful, big eyebrows.
My friend and I look at photographs of our 20-year-old selves and all I can see is plump, taut faces. She sends me a photograph of her current face, taken from a low angle. It’s like a paparazzi “up skirt” of her neck. “I think I need to drink more water,” she says. “I don’t think water is going to cut it,” I respond. Yes, this new body neutrality space we’ve created is wonderful, but if we can’t have a laugh, it’s not going to work for me.
It is hard to find the balance on the spectrum between toxic body positivity and body shaming. I am having a work lunch on a sunny day in a small cafe. My companion is a sexy, strong woman with a long mane of raven hair and eyelids as big and curved as eggs. I have only met her a few times, but she seems to me refreshingly self-assured. I sit with my back to the window so that she can enjoy the view and the light. “Do you mind if we move?” she asks, “Just my moustache will really gleam in that sunshine.”
I carefully look and fail to find the Ronnie she is talking about. I don’t shut her down or patronise her. I just move and gently run my thumb under my chin to see if my hair is back.
