Boy

Awakened to the knowledge I look bloody awful and could look so much better should I clothe myself in a manner more flattering to my physical frame I thought I would be compelled to act on it: hire a personal shopper or at the very least make off in the direction of a department store, but no, I merely acknowledged the fact and did nothing.

I'm indifferent to clothing, my own, others' and the dying-to-be-tired-on-and-worn that sit on racks or headless shop dummies. I don't know what suits, I don't know what doesn't, and nobody, possibly in the whole of the Surrey county, has anything resembling my figure. I'm twiggy, an ironing board. The top half can't make up for or balance out the bottom section or vice versa. Nothing hangs right or hugs in the right places. And, although I'm sure it won't surprise you, I don't do fashion, because I don't think you can have comfort – as in cut and feel – and still be stylish.

But then what I took to be passable clearly wasn't.

Oh God, is that how I truly looked that day? Why on earth before I walked out the door did I think that ensemble was okay? Long and narrow with no conceivable or even false impression of shaping, and yet I had no notion of that until I later viewed snaps of the occasion. Well, does it matter then? you might say if you had a good time and nobody stared or remarked upon your willowy frame or style of dress, and you yourself didn't feel your attire was distinctly unflattering. Yes, that's a fair point, but what hit me after was the realisation I hadn't, that my perception although not way off was marginally different to what in actuality it was. I hadn't realised it looked quite that bad, that I looked how I've long dreaded to look, like an overgrown yet-to-develop schoolgirl, complete with the obligatory ponytail and uniformity of colour, particularly when once upon a time I observed that in an older adult woman and decided, firmly so I thought, I would never return to or become that. But then she probably didn't see it either – it coming or its permanent presence.

I used to be described as slim, then lean (there's no spare fat on you) and now skinny. Of course I'm aware; I do not see me differently, to how people see me, in a mirror: a long face on a long neck into a knotty clavicle, to a flat chest and narrow hips unsuitable for child-bearing and a stomach that's a bit less flat and soft, into a droopy pancake-flat bottom supported by stick-like legs. And with bones that jut all over like craggy rocks in the sea that go unnoticed then appear and cause boats to run aground, and their peoples to drown.

Clothed: an exceptionally long torso with gangly arms the same width from wrist to shoulder and legs that fail to make any statement and only make me average height. There, I've just described a sapling; an accurate picture of now but not of all time.

At one stage, I was, though still slim, more shapely and more at home in my skin, but then I was younger and plumper, my flesh firmer and boosted with moisture. Now it's just dull and dry and reacts sensitively to all weathers and all situations. It's an emotional creature, entirely separate from my own less revealed emotions. And so as figures change (or our perceptions and acceptance of them) my dislike and discomfiture has only grown, like having thick wavy hair (which I also have) and wanting the straight kind that shines and hangs curtain-like, because while waistlines have expanded my figure, in comparison, appears more elongated and unreal as in not what people have adapted to or want to see. It's all about meat and curves. Real women. The hourglass and the apple, not the boy.

'...an airy slim boy in shrimp-colored tights...' and blue silks and dainty laces and ruffles, with long yellow curls, like Clarence, the page, in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, except he was indeed male (and not a female in disguise) who would probably be further modernised as a dandy or a Byronic romantic. The likes of Spandau Ballet or Duran Duran. That pretty description would never be given of a woman with a boyish form, though the 'forked carrot' comparison might still be made. (p.16)

Nobody wants scrawny. The scrags, of the kind you might save for a stock or stew, which without embellishment (padding and deceptive lines) have no prospect of improvement.

Picture credit: Silhouette Boy and Bird, Hubert Leslie, as photographed by P R Francis.

All posts published this year were penned during the last.