Wednesday, August 8, 2007

boob thoughts

I used to shy away with a secret glance when my mother traipsed around naked, just the way my daughter does nowadays, when mine are out in all their glory. I don’t think of hiding them at home. Not like I walk around with my boobs hanging out all the time, but in jaunts from the shower to the bedroom, or getting dressed or changing outfits. I catch her peeking at them as quickly and as casually as she can, then looking away. She is probably wondering, like I did, when I looked at my mom’s “Is that what mine will look like?”

I haven’t seen her breasts since before she had them. I have no idea what they look like, except that they are growing fuller, heavier. Other than that, complete mystery. My daughter’s modesty is in direct correlation with my lack of modesty.

Twelve years ago, when I was nursing her, I loved the sensation when she would first latch on and the milk would start to flow. I, giver and sustainer of life, never more powerful. She, a brand new person, looking up at me with blue eyes as wide and bright as the sun. She and I so connected. Now she has breasts of her own and in the privacy of my own thoughts, I wonder what they look like.

Breasts are such curious body parts. One thing I have learned: you can never predict what a woman’s breasts will look like. You can try. You can imagine where the ariola rests, where the nipples are arranged, sure you can attempt to picture them. But they will always surprise you.

I remember being twelve, my breasts were awkward and uncertain. My best friend Jenny Berner was way ahead of me in her development. We often changed in front of each other during that time. To show each other how comfortable we were with each other. But I was never comfortable. Her body was so different from mine. Her breasts heavy and huge, mine mere mosquito bites. She told me one day that my breasts looked like pig snouts. I proceeded then to own this. I owned it for twenty years. Hearing her voice in my memory often. Pig snouts. “Your boobs look like pig snouts.”

It wasn’t until recently, within the last nine or ten years that I finally realized they do not look like pig snouts. Not one bit.

In fact, they were, and are, quite lovely. Perhaps one of my best features.

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