Nourishing the Soul

I found this post this morning on Nourishing the Soul Have a read, it really made me think and I couldn't help but agree with the ending points. Ellie x


Recently I was browsing through old photographs, memories of homecoming dances and holiday meals spread out before me on the coffee table in joyful disarray. I came upon an image tucked among others from a summer I spent in Cameroon, a country in western African whose patchwork of diverse cultures resembles an old blanket – tattered but comfortable.
The photograph I held in my hands pictured a young man whom I met during my brief but life-shifting stay in the city of Kumba in southwest Cameroon. While the man’s name and even character had long since evaporated from my memory, the image brought to mind a conversation that we had on one surprisingly cool evening in June. The man (we’ll call him Pierre, a common name the country where French is one of the two national languages) had asked me what the United States was like, and I eagerly shared the romantic details of the neighborhood in which I grew up, as well as the college town where I had by then spent three wonderful years.
As I talked, I noticed Pierre’s eyes were wide with excitement, drinking in my words hungrily. He stopped me mid-sentence to ask, “Miss, Miss! You must tell me! Are there really swimming pools at every house?” I burst into laughter and replied that there certainly were not.
“But, what about gold? Isn’t nearly everything made of gold?” Again, I replied that no, most things were made of brick and mortar, admittedly studier that the wooden structures that many in his city called home. By this point, I began to get a sinking feeling in my stomach, wondering where exactly Pierre had developed the idea that our bathrooms had golden toilet seats.
When I learned that the answer was MTV’s Cribs, I sighed and shook my head. After several more minutes of assuring Pierre that the US was not littered with hot tubs, Porches, and six-foot women walking down Michigan Avenue in bikinis, I could see the disappointment in his face. When I told him that the freedoms we enjoy are in fact limited by actual laws (no, Pierre, I cannot tell the police officer to shove off or take my neighbor’s car because I like it better), I think I saw his heart break.
In his mind, the US represented all of that was good and wonderful and right. It was sunshine and flowers, luxury and rest. The US was a land of freedom and opportunity and symbolized a chance for a different life, one far different from the one he was currently living. If he could just get to the US, Pierre had told me, he would be happy.
Looking at the photograph of the man smiling hopefully, I realized that the United States was Pierre’s “skinny.”
How many of us have held on to the notion for years that if we could just cross the vast ocean of self-punishment, we could get to the Land of Skinny and experience bliss? That if we could just work hard enough and restrict our natural impulses, we could find the happiness that lies within being thin? That skinny means opportunity and freedom and escape from all that is difficult?
I’m here to tell you, as I told Pierre several years ago now, that this elusive land that you’ve been dreaming of for years is not what you might expect. The US, while affording incredible gifts to its citizens, comes with its fair share of problems. Similarly, a being skinny is not the ticket to gold-paved roads, despite what our media might have us believe. Skinny still feels sadness – it feels pain and hurt and hopelessness.
It’s easy to dream that looking different will make you different, but it’s not the case. Like corruption and disease, low self-esteem and self-hatred know no borders. It’s time to look around and find the beauty in your home.