Venus Was No Toothpick

I’m standing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, staring at a painting of what is described in the side pane as “Venus with an organist and a dog.” The artist’s interpretation of Venus is prostrate on some kind of bed, lovingly reaching for her lap dog while, at the foot of the bed, an organist plays his instrument, gazing longingly over his shoulder at Venus. Venus is roughly the same shade as milk, blushing demurely on the apples of her cheeks. Her serene face is the quintessence of what anyone in this would call “goddess,” but her body is something completely different. Her physique is what one would describe as “pleasantly plump,” a term usually heard at long overdue family reunions from the mouths of geriatric aunts who nibble from a plate of cookies while criticizing everyone else’s figure. They mutter together to one another about who “got fat,” who “got skinny,” who’s doing Weight Watchers (or, as my father awfully-but accurately- named it, Whale Watchers)- family gatherings became a kind of spectator sport. Standing there, I wondered what my aunts would have said about Venus, who was no doubt beautiful, cellulite and all.
“She’s got such a pretty face…” The cliffhanger at the end of the sentence didn’t need to be completed. A backhanded compliment, it was always an indirect aspersion on the condition of your body, and had about as much to do with the beauty of your visage as McDonalds has to do with fine dining. And, in resigning to be considered perhaps only a quarter beautiful, you would help yourself to another slice of apple pie. A la mode. With caramel sauce.
Fortunately, my immediate family had been nothing like this. Food was a family affair. We ate in the sadness of a lost loved one. We ate in the celebration of Christmas, the New Year, Easter, and birthdays. We ate big meals on Saturday  nights and Sunday afternoons. The time, thought, and preparation that went into each meal rivaled the labor spent by inmates in the gulags of Siberia. Food was a way of life. Food was a religion, and our kitchen was its cathedral. And all of us had the robust figures to prove it, save for my brother, who was so skinny he disappeared just by turning on his side.
I recall being aware that I was chunky, but never was I truly bothered by it. I assumed that there were people who were meant to be skinny and there were people who were meant to be like- well, like me. God created skinny people. God created fat people. That’s just the way it was to my child brain. I remember watching a runway show on television, watching the waiflike models trot the runway with their coltish legs lengthened in high heels and thinking “somebody throw sandwiches at them,” and wondering if, in the event someone did have the gumption to do so, they would trample each other in a race to retrieve them. I imagined watching dust and feathers fly, just like in a Looney Tunes cartoon, as hair was pulled and bologna and Wonderbread went airborne in the confusion. Mayonnaise would be smeared, mustard would be used as mace, but in the end only a few victorious models would pat their nonexistent tummies as though they had just gorged on a seven-course meal. What became of the casualties in my daydream escapes me, but I imagine that their bodies were consumed as well, under the “waste not, want not” clause. I remember wondering if models were even allowed to eat, or if part of the job was mere skeletal existence. Maybe man cannot live by bread alone, but a model didn’t even need bread- the carbohydrate count is far too high. They were supposed to photosynthesize nutrients from flashbulbs and runway spotlights.
I didn’t truly understand what any of this meant until I got my first taste of “thin” at fourteen. After steadily losing weight in a healthy manner for a year, I started a downward spiral that I denied at all costs. For the longest time, it had been “you look so good,” or “how did you lose all that weight?” I would just smile and say thank you-that I tried this novel combination called “diet and exercise,” as though it was some great secret- a revolution to those who asked. As the weight peeled off so much that my bones were visible, my parents would add in their own two cents to the “how did you lose the weight” question.
“She’s crazy!” they’d say. “She doesn’t eat a thing!”
I found this not only personally insulting but entirely untrue. Sure I ate. A single grapefruit could sustain me for three hours. Grilled chicken on my salad? I considered that a decadent splurge. I refused any kind of oil or fat, naturally- butter, I believed to be Satan incarnate. I began dressing my salad with only balsamic vinegar and salt, what came to be known- thanks to my father- as “Masongill dressing.” I didn’t care. I believed that anything that slid down my throat went directly to my thighs. I became one of those people that could infuse nourishment from the air. I had willpower of iron. I was thin. I was invincible. I was…miserable.
Musing about all of this, I became more and more aware of the waif standing next to me. Easily about six inches taller than me, she stood statuesquely without the slightest bit of effort. She shook the long, blond sheet from her face, a perfect porcelain oval with high cheekbones and wide, lamp-like blue eyes. I was growing more uncomfortable by the second. As far as physique was concerned, we couldn’t have been more opposite. Standing five foot two inches with deep set (another way of saying beady) brown eyes and shoulder length brown hair in desperate need of a trim, I simply couldn’t measure up- in both literal and figurative senses. I tugged self consciously at the hem of my shirt- the same shit that usually made me feel like I could take on the world. I was unleashing my insecurities on its blameless white cotton. Suddenly, I felt my mother’s hand resting on my shoulder, but without looking at me she said
“Wow, look at that. Venus certainly was no toothpick.”