I am not a body, I am free.

Thoughts on reconstructive surgery and body freedom

new painting from my studio

There’s the saying that we liberals like to use when giving ourselves a pep talk after the unspeakable happens, like your local cafe runs out of your favorite matcha latte mix, or you’re stuck in line at Target for what seems like forever. “I’m a spiritual being having a human experience.” We say it as we try to breathe in through our nose and out through our mouths for a count of four each, then repeat. Ironically by focusing on the breathe, we center ourselves back into our cursed bodies that got us in these wretched situations to begin with. We are forced to accept, at least for the moment, that this is where we are meant to be.

And what of our bodies? They form so much or the way we are understood by the world, regardless of how we understand ourselves.

From a young age my face and my sense of who I was to others were at odds. This tension came to a head, pun intended, in my first three months when I died on the table for over a minute during a reconstructive surgery that was fairly experimental at the time. I like to believe that baby me was pissed off and decided to check out rather than have a bunch of jerks who didn’t know me try to fix me. The reality is they thought they were helping, and they probably were. And so I came back, from wherever I went.

When I did return, my parents became local celebrities for a brief moment. I heard this story from as early as I could remember and saw the grainy VHS taped footage of my cute young parents on local TV, explaining how scary it was to think they had lost their first born.

I would go on to inhabit the face and body I was born into. I was honestly a cute kid with big lead singer energy, taking after my dad who was the frontman for his band at the time. In the innocence of my youth, I believed that whatever had happened was behind me and I was free through the world as I pleased. Perhaps because I had died and come back, somewhere in me was the knowledge that the physical world was not all there was. Surely that was obvious to everyone?

But then at the age of 8, we started making the trip to the Children’s Hospital to see the same doctor again, the one who operated on me the first time. I felt sick with fear every time we would get in the car and drive to a part of Minneapolis where we would otherwise never go, a sort of hospital ghetto.

Dr. Schilling was a nice man who took his job very seriously. He would dig his fingers into my cheekbones trying to understand my bone structure, and I would wince at the pressure. I diverted my eyes from his calculating stare that sized up the dimensions and symmetry of my features. He had to get the exact calculations right, and take a mold of my left cheekbone to try and craft something that would fit my face a year from then, and continue to fit for the rest of my life - a difficult innovation in the science of early reconstructive surgery. Had it not been for me, on me, I might have appreciated the technical know-how needed to perform such a feat.

But instead, my insides were screaming at me to get the f*ck out of there. But I was no longer in charge. Right before committing to the date of my surgery I remember begging my parents not to force me into it. I felt this certainty in my heart that I would be fine and would love myself without it, no matter what I looked like. And I would have been, maybe. Until someone teased me at school. Or who knows, maybe I would have opted in a couple years later when I had more time to think it over. And then maybe it would have been too late given what they knew about bone structure.

The rage I felt had nothing to do with the way I was being treated, necessarily, It was because of the loss of choice. This institutionally-sanctioned loss of internal locus of control is something people face who don’t have agency over their bodies. This is true for anyone not given a say over their medical treatment like children and elders. It’s true for women for so many reasons. It’s true for people of color. For people forced into conversion therapy. It’s true for trans people who are forced to inhabit a body that is not reflective of their true selves. Sadly I could go on and on at examples of the ways that people’s freedoms are being limited, but I won’t.

So how do we deal? We all experience some form of containment and limitations of our physical form whether it’s being stuck in traffic, aging, or being in a body that does not reflect how you feel inside - even if that only means you aren’t living up to today’s beauty standards.

What has helped me as I age and reflect on my relationship to gender and my body image (both now and historically), is trying to focus on the idea that who I am is not defined by my appearance. It’s not defined by how I dress, although that is my favorite way to play. And, at the same time, it feels essential that we get to say what’s right for our bodies as much as possible.

In many ways reconstructive and plastic surgery, regardless of the reason, highlights this idea that I’m trying to get at - that we are not our bodies and because of that we should be able to act freely. The fact that bodies are so malleable and can offer so many different versions of who we seem to be through our dress, our hairstyles or our gender presentation, should be proof enough. None of it is set in stone, or perhaps even real.

I would be lying, though, if I said I had fully internalized this idea that my body is just a vessel that has no bearing on my sense of self-worth. In the most practical terms, my body does not define me, but the reality I have had to face- and that we all face (pun intended)- is our bodies and looks do inform people’s perceptions of who we are.

When the outside doesn’t match the inside, that is a challenge to the status quo that you can either accept or walk away from. Not everyone has to be operated on to be confronted with the truth of who they are. And for others, it is part of their genuine self-expression to undergo surgery.

Iconic.

RuPaul says famously, “We are all born naked and the rest is drag,” but I would venture to say that even the bodies we are born in, and grow into, are a form of outfitting - albeit ones we have less control over. To say ‘I’m a spiritual being having a human experience,’ as trite as it can sound, opens space up beyond the moment of anxiety or doom around the current experience to something more open. It suggests there may be more to life in the unseen. It offers freedom from the inside out, rather than the outside in - although both should be available to us.

I will leave you with a question from an interview with Janet Mock by Oprah. Janet is a trans activist and author who wrote “Redefining Realness." She went on to Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday in 2018 to talk about it. At the end of the interview Janet asks,

“What does it take for people to go get their own freedom, then come back and show others the way?”

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Speaking of freedom and bodies, as a celebration of my first Pride being out, I am dancing with the ODC in the San Francisco Pride Parade. I will be wearing a purple shirt and will be somewhere in the dancing mob of people. If you’re going and catch me there, I would love any photos as I will not have time to take any while dancing to Beyoncé’s “Cozy.” lol

Some happenings:

Live tapings of The Side Woo! I’m hosting a few artists talks in the next couple months, so save the date:

Saturday July 6, 3-4:30pm PT — Conversation with Vivien Ebright Chung about her solo show, Verdant Arcadia, at The Trophy Room LA . We will be talking about her work in the show, communing with nature, and the many wonders of the metaphysical world.

RSVP and learn more about the event here.

Sunday July 28, 3-4:30pm PT — Conversation with Hayley Barker about her new catalog of paitings, “Altar,” at Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles. This talk is still in the works, but I imagine we will get into the woo of Hayley’s work and talk about our shared love of Bonnard.

Email me to get the link once we have an event page set up.