Prompt 306. A Body in the World

Nadia Bolz-Weber & Elaine Lin Hering on taking up space

I’m Trying Something New—

As I navigate a new health challenge, a handful of brilliant friends will be filling in for me every other week as guest hosts of the newsletter. Today, in my stead, you’ll hear from Nadia Bolz-Weber, the public theologian and bestselling author of three New York Times-bestselling memoirs, Pastrix, Accidental Saints, and Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, as well as the newsletter The Corners. I’m so honored to share her wise words with you today.

—Suleika

Sculptures by Alberto Giacometti. Photo by Oliver Berg/picture alliance via Getty

Hi friends!

I was in high school at the time, and not legally old enough to do most of the things my twenty-year-old boyfriend was introducing me to, but the biker dude at the tattoo shop didn’t ask my age. We were in and out of the dingy little converted bungalow in half an hour, my body forever altered. As was my attitude. The long-stemmed rose newly inked on my right hip set me apart, since not a lot of teenage girls were tattooed in 1986.

Only a few years earlier, I was sitting at a military banquet table with my Air Force officer of a father when a colleague of his offered an observation about me, but to my father: “Major Bolz, your daughter is quite tall.”

“Yes,” my father responded to him, while looking at me. “She’s a bit self-conscious right now. She doesn’t realize yet that she’s just a long-stemmed rose.”

As a girl, my body grew remarkably tall in a remarkably short time. Hems of jeans would rest atop my sneakers one week and hover shamefully above my ankles the next. At the time I did not want to be any more noticeable than was entirely necessary, thank you very much. That’s hard to do when you’re not quite fourteen and towering over grown men. But my father never allowed me to slouch. Rather than a stern command to stand up straight!, his refrain was always an affirming reminder to be proud of my height.

Bodies take up space. They just do. It is an inescapable truth of having these things. They just are in the world, and mine takes up more than most women. There have been times when my body has taken up more space more quickly than I could adjust to with grace or ease. Like those two weeks in middle school when I hit my head on the top of the school bus every morning before I could remember how tall I really was. And the time I was eight months pregnant, had short hair, and was wearing a flannel (it was the 90s after all), and the clam chowder sample lady at Costco asked me and my then-husband, “You fellas want to try some soup?”

At times, being tall is not exactly convenient—like on airplanes, or when every dress (no matter the style) has an “empire” waist on me. But anyone who knows me will tell you that I love being tall. Love it. For one, I am very helpful for reaching things on the top shelf. Also, I tend to not be patronized at the same rate as other woman, and for this I give thanks.

The space my body takes up is just the space my body takes up. And she has given me so much: beauty and ambulation and hard work and protection and babies and pleasure. I refuse to apologize for her. In part, I have my father to thank for that. Perhaps had Major Bolz known that the image he used to affirm me would become the image I etched into me, he would have chosen differently, but perhaps not. My father has always seemed simultaneously befuddled and delighted by me. As I’ve gotten older his befuddlement has felt less important than his delight.

By the way, I did tip the scale at over 230 pounds when I was pregnant with my first child, so that long-stemmed rose tattoo? Now an unidentifiable blob that could easily double as a Rorschach test.

How much space we allow ourselves to take up is the subject of today’s essay and prompt, called “Two Tacos, Please” by the author and speaker Elaine Lin Hering—though rather than physical space, it’s about our energetic lives and sense of worthiness. May it help you make meaning of a facet of your past and how it still lives in the present.

Nadia

Some items of note from Suleika:

• Today is the very last day of “The Alchemy of Blood,” my joint exhibit with my mom, Anne Francey, who was my first art teacher and inspiration for all things alchemy. It’s all been as surreal as the fever dreams in my paintings, and I hope to bring these works on the road in the future. More on that soon! In the meantime, you can still see the works and hear my mom and I talk about the meaning we make of them in this video replay of our artist talk.

• Mark your calendar! We’ve scheduled our next meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers for Sunday, October 20 from 1-2 pm ET. It’s always the warmest, most wonderful gathering—I hope you can join us!

Photo by Danièle Dailloux/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Prompt 306. Two Tacos, Please by Elaine Lin Hering

The fast food restaurant Jack in the Box played a significant role in my childhood. It was the first place my brother and I rode our bikes without our parents. It was also the place we went Sundays after church to pick up a quick bite. I’d order off the 99-cent menu. Two tacos, please. 

To be clear, the tacos with their mystery meat and melted American cheese were delicious. But my real motivation was to not use more of the family budget than needed. To not take up space. After a while, I stopped looking at other things on the menu. Jack’s specials never made it into the options I considered. Kid’s meals? What were those? It’s like they didn’t exist. The 99-cent menu was the complete option set.

It’s not unlike how I showed up in the workplace decades later. I made myself small. I filled in the gaps I saw. I made others’ lives easier—without thinking about what I really wanted or considering what I could do. If we stop thinking about what might be possible, it narrows the options of what we even consider. No one ever told me that I couldn’t order something else. No one told me I had to take up less space. But I learned—or taught myself—to make myself small.

To not be a burden. To not cause others worry.

The real worry is failing to see that there could be other options, because we’ve internalized the rules imposed on us—by others or by ourselves. It’s the silence we’ve learned. There are times when I still go back and order the tacos in their grease-stained wrappers. They taste of childhood, nostalgia, and mystery meat. They taste good, but now it’s because I’m choosing the tacos rather than them being the only choice. Two tacos, please.

Your prompt for the week:

Write about something nostalgic—and it could be anything, from a food to a place to a piece of music. Why do you go back to it? Has your relationship to it changed or stayed the same?

If you’d like, you can post your response to today’s prompt in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals. As a reminder, we love seeing your work inspired by the Isolation Journals, but to preserve this as a community space, we request no promotion of outside projects.

Today’s Contributor—

Elaine Lin Hering is a facilitator, speaker, writer, and author of Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully. She works with organizations and individuals to build skills in communication, collaboration, and conflict management.

For more paid subscriber benefits, see—

• Touching the Truth, Suleika’s interview with Nadia Bolz-Weber, where they talked about grief and vulnerability, sunlight as disinfectant for shame, and Nadia’s obsession with freedom

• Marriage Vows & the Myth of the Good Catch, an installment of Suleika’s advice column Dear Susu, where she and her husband Jon answer the question, “Is it selfish to ask someone to marry you if you’re sick?”

• On Laying Things Bare, a video replay of Suleika’s Studio Visit with the critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos, where they talked about writing as an act of personal transformation, the page as a site of truth-telling, and power, beauty, and liberation

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