Fat Bubble: adrienne maree brown

Thanks so much for being here, in our corner of the internet where we celebrate and uplift fat experience.

Thank you all for a very kind response to last week's email.

Instead of writing to you all I: made congee, stared at the wall, organised my spice jars, took some things to the charity shop, stared at the wall, watched SVU, finished my book in record time, stared at the wall. When I read that list back to myself, it feels like a breathing out - the necessary exhale. It makes me reflect on how much time we spend holding our breath in our culture - that we just keep going, keep going, and when everything's done we'll allow ourselves to exhale. Except it's never all done, and we also harbour a worry that if we allow ourselves to breathe out we'll never want to breathe in again. If we rest we'll never want to work again. If we allow the ebb we'll never flow again.

But we're nature, and we're self-righting, and our bodies are brilliantly wise at seeking out homeostasis, for our survival. In the middle of the all and nothing is our humanness - the dynamic ebb and flow of 'the human messy middle' (as I say to my clients all the time!). Last week was a reminder, to you and me and all of us, that it's ok to have limits, it's ok to break a pattern or a run, it's ok to ebb. Maybe I'll do it again - I'm sure I will. Life happens, and sometimes we need to stare at the wall.

This week there has been more flow, more growth. The sun has shone. I made kimchi and bought some flowers. I planted out some herbs that have been patiently waiting in their tubs. I'm writing this. The world turns.

I had planned a different focus for this week, but these thoughts of us as nature have made me want to focus on a perennial favourite, adrienne maree brown. adrienne maree brown's book, Emergent Strategy, is a book I return to again and again - one that I've recommended countless times, one that I quote and reference frequently. It helps me remember the way that we build change is as important as the change we create, and it's certainly a worldview that would have implicitly influenced my confidence to raincheck on last week's newsletter. If I want to be working towards a world that allows fat people to experience more ease and comfort, I'm not going to do that by pushing myself past my limit and burning out, am I? 😉

Her following book, Pleasure Activism, is a vital resource as we reclaim play and pleasure as an antidote to oppression and capitalism and hustle and grind. Play and pleasure are denied to those who have identities that have been marginalised, and reclaiming these rights is both empowering and liberating.

I think I read Emergent Strategy before I realised that adrienne was a fat person, and I so appreciated her sharing more of her relationship with her body in her interview with StyleLikeU. adrienne speaks about her developing relationship with her body and her sense of self - powerfully, saying:

'How would I be with my body if there was nothing to fix?'

So powerful, so moving, and so resonant for so many people who have been told that their body is something to fix. What if we were allowed to just be with our bodies - what would they be like, feel like? What would we do with our time?!

(In line with this, I will say there is one little part here that I disagree with, where adrienne briefly mentions that she is not pro-unhealthy. I am. I'm pro-unhealthy because I think that sometimes what looks 'unhealthy' is the healthiest thing we can do. Again, health isn't a fixed point - it's a dynamic and ever-changing state, and it's contextual and subjective. Health is so multi-factorial, and if you're fat and unhealthy that's ok. That might be a temporary state or a permanent state, but it's ok to me).

I have learned so so much from adrienne maree brown over the years - reading Emergent Strategy had the most profound impact on me, and the way I work, and the way I wanted to build my practice. Her work is so generous and generative and gentle (all from the root 'gen', meaning 'being born, producing, coming to be' - emerging!). It's a book I will always get new wisdom from, no matter how many times I pick it up.

Thank you again for holding space with me last week, and for reading this week.

Until next week, friends, wishing you safety and joy.

Vicky