...Woke up in Paris

Sometimes I think there are too many words in my world. So for a change, this is what I saw today (well, today last week if we're being technical about it).











Viva la France.

... Learned to Love the Thigh Meat

So my usual repertoire of thoughts regarding my body is generally quite positive these days. I've learned to accept that, yes, I will always struggle to fill a b-cup. It actually works in your favour if one of your "Ulti-Woman" idols happens to be Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. In addition, thanks to J-Lo (back from the days when we all knew her as Jennifer Lopez) in the white, Western world we've learned to accept "that flat butts" aren't "the thing" and to internalize the important affirmation that the "anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns hon". Therefore, frequently not being able to find pants that can tame the junk in the trunk is not as traumatic as I once found it in my more tender years.

Where this Woman Hear Me Roar love-a-plooza still all comes crashing down, though, is my thighs. And it's not because I think they're too big, or that I'm too short, or because of cellulite or hair or veins or any of the other run of the mill "I hate my thighs" arsenal known by all women everywhere. It's because I think they look like chicken drumsticks. If you're confused, imagine getting two nice, big plump chicken drumsticks and standing them up onto the little pointy ends. While doing this, make sure you place them close enough together so that the fleshy round bits at the top end up touching. Now wrap them in denim. Put some miniature red high heels or a pair of cowboy boots on the little nubs. Et Voila - that's what I see when I look at myself in jeans. Pretty much every time.

However, after running through the usual mental checklist before leaving the house for dinner the other night (wallet, check, hand bag, check, lip gloss, check, look in mirror and curse the furies for giving me ugly chicken drumstick legs, check) I had to pull myself up for cursing the drumsticks later on. At the table next to us, there was an old woman eating dinner with her son. And when she'd finished, I sat there and watched her as she gingerly made her way out of the restaurant, leaning on a walking frame. When she stopped at the two small steps she needed to walk down to get out the front door, so that two people could physically help her down them, it made me stop too. I suddenly didn't care that I'd thought my legs looked like blue denim clad, free-range thigh meat before leaving the house - they'd got me up those stairs without missing a beat. In fact, they'd been so good at getting me up those stairs I hadn't even registered that they were there.

My legs traverse steps for me every day. They peddle my bike. They tense to hold me up when I get on tippy-toes to get flour out of the cupboard. They help me dance with my best friend at Ding Dong and wrap me all the way around my boyfriend for a cuddle when I wake up in the morning. I'm now on holidays, and they're going to walk me around the streets of Paris wherever I want to go and get me all the way down Portobello Road and back up again without a complaint. They aren't just useless lumps of flesh for me to curse at because they don't look "right": they're strong and efficient and cleverly designed with complex moving parts that all work together to allow me to do the things I love.

So ladies, all the ladies, if you want to drive your own Mercedes (metaphorically speaking), my advice is to learn to love the thigh meat. They deserve your love, even if you think they're too skinny, too fleshy, too short, too white, too hairy, too blotchy, too muscly, too dimpled or just too anything. Just remind yourselves of every single thing they help you do every single day. And you know what? I'm going to lead by example and tell myself that too and instead of cursing, start reminding myself that there's always a fight over the drumsticks on a Sunday roast. You know why? Because they're damn tasty.