Reader Submissions

home bodies

by

Sandra Renew

When the interloper first hitchhiked into our out-and-about world, we took our vulnerable bodies home, stayed home, let ourselves go, let ourselves down. Unapologetic and self-justifying, our mind-fog slovenliness crept from unexercised bodies to pyjama days, under doonah safe-houses, breakfast for lunch, frenzies of home-made everything, no judgement meted out for under-bed dust bunnies caught in quilted hides set low to the floor.

Racks of clothes worn for dancing, kissing, flirting, mocked us, until, getting a grip on living at home, a new regime of hair washing, clean shirts, daily walking in green spaces, self-improving in-home entertainment meant no more binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy. Face-book embarked on a quest for beauty, invitations to share private home corners, best of seven book-covers, a tree a day, and cuteness consumed as a home-grown appetite.

As if our GPS locator changed our geo-location to a parallel spot in space, a home-centred universe, suddenly, home is where the zoom is. In our new home-body curves, we’re on the curve, anxiety on the up and up, aiming for the power of one, the goal a flat-line for living.

After-home locks in with the amnesia of we’re home and hosed (a racing metaphor from before), and with Step one and Step two, we’re so quick to abandon our home bodies, our own parlours and salons.

Opening for full body works: beauty, tanning, waxing, nail salons; spa, massage, tattoo and body modification parlours — geo-located out of home again, we’re working on the after-bodies, shape shifting silhouettes…