Getting Waisted (10 page)

9

Walking on Water

Diet #10
Stress-O-Matic

Cost
0

Weight lost
0

Weight gained
Yes!

I spent extraordinary amounts of time
eyeing myself in any and all reflective surfaces, looking for signs that I was gaining my weight back. I had a history of failures outweighing my successes, so I had good reason to worry. All of it was made worse as I was now designing dresses at my mother’s swanky shop—which was filled with mirrors. Being there was akin to making my way through a Gordian knot of demanding clients and gorgeous models, plus having to spend every day with my mother, who was still trying to woo me back to her house. The cherry on the sundae was when she played the “poor Daddy” card: “Your father has gone on a hunger strike and he won’t eat till you come home.” I didn’t want to be unsympathetic, but I refused to be emotionally blackmailed and responded by saying I was on a hunger strike, too, and I needed to live with Beverly and Katja as they were my Holy Grail of inspiration. Living with roommates who were lean, lovely, and very athletically inclined upped my game, meaning I was no longer spending all my time flopped on the sofa.

Beverly and a group of her friends, some of whom were visiting from Germany, asked me to go parasailing with them. I had no idea what parasailing was, but it conjured images of tall-masted sailboats cruising on Lake Ontario on a warm summer day, carrying passengers wearing white pants and navy accessories. I was in; until they explained it was similar to water-skiing, only up in the air. These people were crazy! I must have been drunk or had a gun to my head because I said yes to this adventure, which required wearing a harness
and
a bathing suit! Despite being a thinner version of myself, I still did not have anything close to a body wanting to be on public display in something skimpy. I was now merely plump instead of fat. The word “plump” made me think of smooshy, feather-packed pillows, which did not give me the confidence I needed. Instead, I decided to take on this adventure wearing what I had on: a long pair of pants, a tightly buttoned blouse, and a vest made from some vintage upholstery fabric. But I did kick off my shoes and socks. I’d rather have been hot than exposed. I watched as each of my new friends, one after another, was strapped into a harness; I didn’t even like the word “harness” as it summoned images of medieval torture. I was happy to be the gung-ho girl
,
cheering everyone on as, one after another, they ran along the beach attached to a line being pulled by a speedboat, then skimmed across the water and in a beautiful bikinied ballet they would soar up in the air, arms stretched out with huge smiles of euphoria beaming from their faces. The ride was only a few minutes long but each one of them landed smoothly and gleefully on their feet on the sand, filled with a feeling of conquest. It was now my turn, but I didn’t want to go. I was filled with a feeling of foreboding, which one of the Germans said was just a euphemism for fear.
So what if it is, Dr. Freud-Bigmouth
? I thought defensively, but I succumbed to the barrage of assurance from everyone, telling me I would love it, and that it was a piece of cake.

I tried to think of cake as I walked to my execution. I refused to take off the layers of clothing that I said I was wearing to protect me from the sun, but really were there to act as a barrier to protect me from bathing-suit humiliation. A spacey-looking guy in torn shorts, who looked like he’d spent a great deal of time drinking and smoking questionable things came toward me, harness in hand. “This should hold you, I think.
Oookay
. . . in ya go.”

My legs turned to stone in instinctual preservation. “That’s a very thin rope,” I said nervously. An octogenarian slip of a woman with bright red lipstick whipped by me, tightly secure in her harness, and up, up, and away like a beautiful balloon she ascended into the sky. I was egged-on, peer-pressured, and beaten into submission and I was out of rope and out of excuses. Strapped into the harness of doom, I closed my eyes and prayed; the wind, which up until now had been giving everyone a gentle assist was gone and in its place there was a stultifying stillness. “What does it know . . . ?”
The boat pulled away from the shore but I didn’t skim across the water, I clomped, my feet dipping well below the water line, my pants sopping wet up to my knees but the boat still struggled, as did I without any wind to get liftoff. But then in a sudden burst, it took off at warp speed—not in a gentle balletic move but more in a missile-hurtling-into-space kind of move! I
screamed
skyward, my clothes flapping like a flag and my face torqued against the wind in a full-on fright mask, but then, for one nanosecond, I felt the joy. I was flying and I was ecstatic. WOW! But why was the water getting closer? Why did I see open-mouthed horror on Beverly and all the German’s faces? People were running toward the water, their hands clasped over their mouths to muffle their panic.
SPLASH!
I was down and under water, I felt the parachute and the heavy harness straps and all my clothes pulling me down, far down. I kicked hard as I pushed and fought my way to the surface, fighting not to drown. I was thinking, this could only have happened to a “big girl” like me.

The rope snapped and I popped to the surface, gasping for air. I heard loud voices coming from the boat as the spacey guy and the boat driver argued; “I thought I told you to get the boat fixed!”

“I thought you were gonna do it!”
The boat had stalled, which was not my fault, but with yet one more memorable humiliation, I was hauled back into the boat like a beluga whale and towed to shore.

I took some small pleasure in watching the shocked faces of my friends when I made the decision to go up again with another boat. I had already experienced the worst that could possibly happen and I needed my clothes to dry, but this time when I took off, the wind was at my back and I soared upward, grinning from ear to ear and flying high. When the ride was done, in spite of the little powerboat coming close to shore, a picture-perfect slow arc and the parachute gracefully fluttering down, I somehow managed to land flat on my ass—but it was at least on the sand. I stood up, dusted myself off, and took a bow.

I loved working in Yorkville. It was the dawning of the official love-in for the Age of Aquarius and there were countless tribes of young people flaunting their love beads and free-love lifestyle all over the world but it coalesced in my little part of
Toronto’s nirvana in a big way. Coffeehouses, paper flowers, and macramé wall hangings, bikers and hippies were all hanging together in formerly staid old Victorian houses that now sprouted hot colors of pinks, yellows, and purples, and out of every one blasted a new and raucous form of music.

Smack in the middle of the mayhem stood my mother’s shop, one of many new-style boutiques, dominated by a European coffeehouse at the center of a large courtyard filled with tables of young and happening people—and I had a window on all of it. Mostly I was focused on a shaggy-haired young American draft dodger named Jake who had designs on becoming an actor. He didn’t know many people. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he had taken his draft notice with the attached subway token, which was supposed to get him to the nearest army office to declare himself, but instead he had used it to get to the bus station and then into Canada. I had never heard of Vietnam but now I studied up in order to be able to seem informed and caring, my singular and not so politically correct motivation was that Jake was really cute and I wanted to impress him. I joined peace marches outside the U.S Consulate where I met lots of lost boys, most of them lonely and idealistic. They had found their Mother Courage in me and I was only too happy to be their tour guide, even letting a few of them sleep under the wedding dresses in my mother’s shop as long as they rolled up their sleeping bags and got out before 9
am
.

Jake and I spent many nights hanging out, debating the war with a motley mix of dissenters and baby right-wingers. Even though we were both on the same side, our arguments were necessary in order to keep the flirtation heady and alive—until one night when it was just Jake and me under the wedding dresses, and there was no more talk of right and wrong. More than being completely spontaneous, it was my first time having consensual sex ever and I was scared. But Jake was no Hal; being with this gentle conscientious objector to all things to do with war, but never to love, gave me back a missing piece of me, along with some subversive pleasure in having done
it
right under my mother’s nose.

My life had begun and I couldn’t have felt a greater sense of belonging than being smack in the middle of the emerging patchwork of artists, actors, young law students, boutique owners, filmmakers, models, and gadabouts. I had found the circus I was intended to be a part of and I had a ringside seat. I wanted to make sure nothing changed so I was careful and ate cautiously, weighing everything, making sure there was no fat, no salt and most often, no taste. I didn’t care; I needed to remain vigilant in order to remain thinner, which allowed me to remain happy—but also perpetually hungry.

I was half asleep thinking those dreamy, forbidden early-morning moist-making thoughts:
Mmmn . . . Oh yeah, crispy bacon, cheesy eggs, thick buttery toast
. . . when the phone shrieked next to my ear. I didn’t need to be psychic to know it was my mother; it was always my mother and she always woke me up. I had visions of her pacing like a caged animal until she thought it was a reasonable time to call. It was never reasonable; if roosters weren’t up then neither should I be, but she was sounding more agitated than usual. “I need you to talk to your father, he listens to you.” I explained that was because I listened to
him
but she was already off and running, “Three times, he calls my name. He’s stuck in the bath, his arteries are filled with seventy-five years of rice pudding . . . he knows he cannot have baths. He knows this, he gets stuck, he’s like a mountain of wet papier-m
â
ché and I have to go in there, bend down, and touch
that . . . piece of white putty. He’s like an albino. English men must never take off their clothes. I had to wrap my arms around him and lift him from the bathtub. These are supposed to be my golden years?”