No Longer Hiding

I’m taken aback when I see this photo of me at the beach at age ten.  Around this time I had my big realisation of just how different I looked, ('I look THAT Different?') which is the first story in my book. The story details the moment I fully realised I am physically different.

With my family at our small beach house in Madora Bay,  I was walking back from the beach where the photo was taken, when my holiday friend said “You’ve got funny ankles.”  “No I don’t” I replied. When she put her ankle next to mine, I could see she was right. I had a swelling on the outside of the ankle she didn’t have. A watershed moment, when somehow the blinds I’d been living with all my life came off, and I saw the raw reality.

I remember my reaction when I first saw this photo. I was dismayed. I could see my funny knees, elbows and ankles with new eyes, and I didn’t like them. I felt self–conscious, ugly.

Since then whenever I’ve had a photo taken I’ve avoided being standing, so showing all of my body and height. I’ve tried to get everyone else sitting and direct the photographer to shoot from the waist up, so most of me is not shown.

Forty years of avoiding being seen in my full length body in photos.

It’s Not Enough Just to Write a Book Anymore

Then in 2015 I read an article “How much time should we spend on our author platform strategy?”  ‘What the hell are they talking about?’ Heart sinking, I read about all the social media platforms any aspiring author must be on. It’s not enough just to write a good book any more, one must be one’s own promoter. Even having a blog isn’t enough.

I recoil at the thought of being so out there, so exposed, for all to see, to gawp at. And videos are out, my speech impediment makes me hard to understand. No, no, not going there. I value my privacy and my only social media is a personal Facebook page, with the profile photo obscured in an outline silhouetted in a Bali sunset.

But it plants a seed, and it starts me thinking, wondering. What would I post? What could I do?

Love and acceptance of my body is long settled but here is another layer, my old issue has surfaced and it’s time to re-examine it. 

It’s time to face the next level of my raw reality and acceptance.

Stepping Out and Being Proud of All of Me

This journey of getting a book published has become a challenge to step out and be proud of all me. I’ve happily hidden for a long time, a voice only on my radio show Full Circle, and behind the DJ desk at my Zorbas Dance Club. Is it time to expose all of me and not hide away?

The change starts when I show up for the protests against the Roe 8 highway though local wetlands. The image taken of little me, and my sign honouring Joni Mitchell, with four police behind is powerful. It is shared on social media, and I’m happy it can be used for a good cause. Eventually we stopped the bulldozers, but this was their first day of felling trees and destroying urban bushland, and I was in tears hearing them behind me.

Then when I’m sending submissions to a few publishers, I need a cover photo that shows my height and body clearly, so in an instant they can see what I’m about. Of course I don’t have any full length photos.  So after a free photo shoot with a friend’s brother who is a professional photographer, I have a long distance shot standing in the enormous doorway of an old building in Fremantle. It will do. The distance suits my reticence, though much of my personality and details can’t be seen.

The Business of Being a Writer

Still resisting, it is the Fremantle Press seminar “The Business of Being a Writer” that tips me over the edge of surrender. It’s made very clear that with publishing increasingly difficult and limited marketing budgets, and the availability of social media, authors have to do their own promotion, whether we self-publish or find a publisher.

Can I be bothered?  Will I just give up with the whole book? Every time I ask this question the answer is “I can’t stop now, I’ve put too much into it, it’s too late to turn back, I have to finish it.” It comes back to why I began, I’m damned if I will be silenced by having no voice. With my speech impediment, I may not be understood so well, but I can still express myself in writing. My journey of coming to love and accept myself and my body is unique but the struggles are universal. I can still make a contribution to my community.

Return of my Mojo

I started the book in 2009, and it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. I thought writing was hard enough, but the editing, trying to mould the unwieldy 330 pages into a smaller, more palatable form, letting go of stories that are important to me, has been torture. I’ve been stuck for months, not helped by rejections from five publishers. But after seeking support from my local community, recently my mojo returned.  This book needs to be birthed.

Photo by Maria Wilson

Project Photos

On with my Author Platform Strategy and Project Photos. The first attempts with a friend in the forest are not an auspicious start. I don’t feel natural in front of the camera, I don’t know how to stand, how to relax. I don’t like any of them. It’s confronting to see my whole body shape, to see how I still walk bent over a little, despite all my work in the pool to stand straight.

Then I enlist local photographer and prolific social media poster Maria Wilson, and Diane Niyati to be my stylist, attempting to show my height clearly, which isn’t so easy.  Maria’s relaxed, ‘oh let’s just pop to South Beach and play around’ style helps me relax a bit more. There’s a few photos I feel okay about, that I could use. Progress. Another step in the journey of loving and accepting my body.

But it’s on my trip to Tasmania that a lot of my self-consciousness drops away. Every time there is a yet another photo opportunity I say “I think it’s time for Dave (as in Attenborough)” and my friend Gitika steps up in good cheer to take shots in beautiful places. After twelve days, I’m more at ease. I no longer have a reaction seeing a full body photo.

So here I am in 2019 with my Little Body Huge Life page on Facebook and Instagram (#littlebodyhugelife), and blog, sharing who I am and what I’ve learnt in my huge life in a little body. Dragged here after 18 months of reluctance, it’s been a surprisingly positive experience, thanks to my dear friends with their generous hearts and words, and my social media group and mentor Amanda Kendle. I’ve discovered I can be making a contribution to a more conscious world now, I don’t have to wait for my book to come out - see the meme below.

Thank you for coming on board.