{"id":57,"date":"2017-05-04T17:08:23","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T17:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-teaching-autoethnography\/chapter\/five-feet-mighty\/"},"modified":"2017-05-04T18:05:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T18:05:03","slug":"five-feet-mighty","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-teaching-autoethnography\/chapter\/five-feet-mighty\/","title":{"raw":"Five Feet Mighty","rendered":"Five Feet Mighty"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n\r\nMy body is a five feet piece of double sided tape, drifting through Georgia and New York while memories, feelings, and lessons stick to me, capture who I am today.\r\n\r\nStart from the bottom with two feet ten inches. My feet are a size six in women\u2019s, a size four in men\u2019s, and my toenails are never perfectly shaped because clipping them is a wild adventure, especially when I can\u2019t see my toes very well without my glasses on. Yet my feet have confidence etched into them after experiencing the conservative streets of Georgia in five-inch platforms. My ankles are, to put it nicely, utterly fucked up. After a few sprains and a stretched ligament, I can no longer run without a brace on or walk a mile without them snap, crackle, popping. My legs are short and chubby, and due to the fact that I have yet to get over my fear of razors, they\u2019re also a little stubbly. However, these are the same hairy legs that shook as I made my way to the podium to welcome and introduce everyone during graduation. Unfortunately, my vagina isn\u2019t as interesting as Phillip Lopate\u2019s penis, but at least I know I\u2019m not as egotistical as he is. My buttocks are not in the nice shape that one would expect from a young eighteen year old girl; I suppose I\u2019ve simply yet to pick up on the idea of working out for fun. Thankfully these buttocks have cushioned me on countless public education chairs and communal toilets and that, I\u2019d say, tops off two feet ten inches of bravery and strength.\r\n\r\nMove up one foot and four inches; stop at my shoulders. At the center one will find the flab that is my stomach\u2014a side effect from my addiction to bread and cheese. This stomach once consumed only 140 calories, or one granola bar, which had me bed ridden because my body refused anything I tried to put in my mouth the next day. It was an incredibly valuable lesson for me. My breasts are the embodiment of myself in one word: small. But I\u2019ve come to accept it and manage to still feel damn good in Aerie bras. My hands are my favorite, and it\u2019s almost obligatory for me to have on nail polish, just to adorn my fingers. I\u2019ve played violin, guitar, and the ukulele, flicked off those who weren\u2019t worth wasting my breath over, and held the sweaty palms of close friends on our first rollercoaster rides. My back remains a land unknown, but it\u2019s received enough congratulatory pats to know appreciation. That\u2019s one foot and four inches of self love and love from others. That\u2019s four feet two inches of me.\r\n\r\nThe remaining ten inches come from my head. My teeth are crooked, I wear lipstick religiously, and I\u2019m pretty sure my tongue is too big for my mouth. With it, saying \u201cy\u2019all\u201d is my guilty pleasure. Of course, cursing up a storm, singing some tunes, and giggling at hands getting cut off make me pretty happy, too. I have two moles above my upper lip that remind me of Pikachu because they\u2019re so symmetrically placed. My nose has my father\u2019s slight bump and it\u2019s also smelled the most awful stenches when my class visited a wastewater treatment plant and we were graced by the presence of other people\u2019s feces. My eyes always have on double eyelid tape and they are completely mismatched: one has perfect vision and the other can barely see across the room. Through them I\u2019ve seen my father hunched over English workbooks and I\u2019ve witnessed movie scenes of characters\u2019 eyes being ripped out. My ears are pierced and they\u2019ve heard so much music that if I were a body part, I would be an ear just to channel lovely sounds into my body. My hair has been intoxicated with straightening chemicals because I have naturally curly hair, to the point where I had an Asian afro going on when I was younger. Ever since I got to FIT, I\u2019ve wanted to cut it short and dye it dark blue. My head is a mystery even to me, and all I know is that my thoughts are incredibly odd. I think about death, I think about love, I think about my future. In all honesty that\u2019s ten inches of twisted.\r\n\r\nBut in one piece, I am five feet. And five feet may not be tall or grand but I know that I am comprised of many parts that make me whole. At this point in life it seems impossible to go through much more, but I\u2019m still that double sided piece of tape\u2014a bit tattered, a bit small, but sticking with a whole lot of might.\r\n
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