StjärnsKropp

I just applied to nine art schools in Stockholm as a nude model for figure painting and drawing... What?—I know, right? After my brave emails had zipped around in cyberspace for an hour, I already got a reply, "We'll contact you when we need a model." I don't know what that means, but I tend to go out on random whims and apply for jobs. Let's see where this goes. I do know one thing though, and that is, laying around naked while other people draw you is amazingly relaxing. It's like being forced to meditate on the spot and accept yourself and your mindset and whatever things might be making you feel like you should be moving. All awkwardness disappears because there is nothing left to hide. I think that two years ago I never could have done something like this. I was way too insecure about myself image.

Bodies are beautiful and artists find the magic in shape, curvature, shadow... Mothers who were runway models and have rotund children maybe aren't as good in seeing the beauty in natural, womanly curves. I have kind of a history with being my mother's "fat" daughter.

When I was 6, I spent a lot of time going back and forth between my parents, between Germany and Florida. There were things that I wasn't allowed to do with my mom that my German family condoned, such as the eating of meat and sweets. I think I returned to Florida one february, probably a bit chubbier than when I'd left, from all the forbidden chocolate and gingerbread and sausages. My mom flipped out when she saw me and told me that she was ashamed to go out in public with me. Deep scars. Those words will never, ever leave my heart.

A similar thing happened later on, when we were living in Mill Valley, California and going through a financial crisis. My dad was desperately trying to find a job that could support the four of us living in the bay area, attending a Waldorf school and eating organic food but he just couldn't find anything. My mom couldn't handle the stress of the situation left him for a while. She took off to our condo in Florida with my sister. I was 3/4 of the way finished with 5th grade and spent the last quarter living with various friends; three weeks with a girl in Novato, and the remaining 4 weeks with two other people in San Francisco. The parents of my friends took me in out of the kindness of their hearts, but seriously, it's not like my mom could have expected them to feed me gourmet lunches, specially tailored to the diet that she saw fit for me. No, it was a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pasta. Take unaccustomed, high-calorie food and mix it with an incredible life-stress on a developing 11-year old girl and you will see weight gain. The shock on my mom's face when she greeted me at the airport after 7 weeks of my nomadism was hurtful, to say the least. What a warm welcome back into my family, "it looks like you've gained 8 pounds!"

I understand her point of view, because I know that she partially has my health in mind. Yes, I agree completely that 8 extra pounds are nothing but a bother. But she made me feel like an obese, worthless, pigtailed, Harry Potter-reading loser. She instantly put me onto a no-carb, death diet and forced me into some treacherous tennis camp for a week, where I just cried under the blazing Florida june sun and bit the insides of my cheek in fury and hatred towards this woman, trying my best to hit the fucking tennis ball. Fuck tennis...but that's a story for another time. Anyway, the irony is that I would be allowed only pineapple and oranges for the first 6 hours of the day, yet then she'd ask if we wanted to go out for ice cream. It felt like an evil trap. What was I supposed to do? Say "Yes, sure! I'd love a scoop! You can give me scrutinizing glances while I eat it and then you can deny me dinner for three days in a row! :D" No way. I refused the ice cream. I wasn't going to let her manipulate me into accepting her "nice" gesture that I'd later pay for dearly.

I played her game and played it hard. I watched the digits on the scale drop daily, probably way below the average weight for an 11-year old. Inside I wished that I could be so skinny that she would worry, that somehow I could hurt myself and cause her such pain to see what her fucked up vision of what I should look like did to her precious "Sternchen" daughter.

That only worked for a few weeks at a time though. I'd be thin and "healthy," then, as all adolescent girls do, expand in one way or another and have to fight back the tears as she tortured me with lectures of how weight gain is dangerous and how I don't want to end up like her cousin (quite a tragic weight and diabetes) because once the weight is there, it's impossible to work off. Seriously, I was a puffy, hormonal tween being treated like a morbidly obese, spineless sack. The rage ate me up inside. I had mini starvation attempts where I'd eat nothing for two days to try and prove some sort of point. But it never worked. I always gave in to hunger before she could see the minute difference it made.

I managed it though, when I was a senior in high school. I reached an actual state of anorexia and she didn't even notice. It wasn't until I got a really bad flu and couldn't move from my bed that she even took the slightest interest. I was shuffling from my sickbed to my dresser in my underwear and she walked past my open door and said, "wow, you lost a lot of weight." And she even threw in a little optimistic, "Hmm" to top her obvious validation with an evil little cherry. Well, great. After 12 years of trying I succeeded in making my mother approve of my starved, sick, unhappy body. That moment was the worst thing I've ever felt; her approval in my lowest moment. I was sick to my empty stomach with her, and with myself with the whole fucked-up situation. The next morning I had three pieces of toast with lots of butter, because she wasn't even worth the torture.

Once I graduated, I took off for Europe and the scales kind of tipped in the opposite direction for a while. Oh the freedom of actually allowing myself meals! After a few months of indulging and letting myself experience the joy of being rotund (hahaha) I returned to my normal, healthy weight, shape and size and tried to convince myself that I no longer gave a fuck what anybody thought.

Studying anatomy that winter in med school was fascinating. My romantic appreciation of the body was dissolved into talk of tissues and cells and atoms. Nothing beautiful about it. It was reduced to a list of scientific terms and a corpse on a table. My decision to be a doctor changed almost instantly and I don't regret quitting, but I do still find bodies fascinating. However, I think I appreciate them more in their form and feeling than in their systematic, medical function. A recent ex of mine, who happened to be a doctor, also made me hate my body, ALL OVER AGAIN! He and his roomies would talk about their patients and he would utter phrases like, "I fucking hate fat people!" Those words triggered a deep anger in me as they hit my eardrum. He himself was obsessed with his figure and worked out manically. Sleeping next to a chunk of pure muscle is awful, I must say. No warmth, no give, no love. And me, I just felt like a piece of fat at the edge of the mattress.

It's remarkable how sensitive this subject is for me. On one side I have the haters making me feel like any sort of form is disgusting, and on the other side I have positive feedback from people with actual souls who also see the beauty in a womanly body. I've just about had enough of this back and forth in my head, heart and body, and it's settled. I'm going with the 4 or 5 people who've told me to model for artists and that's that. Life is way too short to worry about what skinny mothers or asshole ex-boyfriends have said. Art is real and tries to capture the best and the beauty in everything. My body is stardust (fitting that my nickname was "Sternchen"—little star) and one day will return to stardust and so in the meantime I might as well be the star in somebody's oil painting.