Fat Dad Dancing

Making better art by getting reacquainted with my body

Hello, Dancers!

I spent the best part of the last seven years honing my ability to notice the changes in nature happening around me. I have spent the better part of the past twenty years ignoring my body.

This comic is from my current work in progress, the next issue of Weirdoku (an experimental haiku comics zine). This issue is all about time and time travel. It’s titled, “Spare Bits of Waiting”.

dancing in the dark
distant cosmic rays signal
speaking from the past

Fat Dad Dancing

It’s tempting to start this essay by explaing that I wasn’t always fat. But that’s not really the point.

The point is for most of the past twenty years I have ignored my body. Some of that is habit. I’ve always been relatively healthy. Some of that is stress. Life has thrown a lot at me over the past two decades. But most of it has been shame. I don’t like to think about my body.

Four years ago, I was diagnosed with kidney cancer. If there was ever a time to take stock of my health, that was it.

But not much changed for me. I had a heart stress test and passed with flying colors. The staff struggled to get my heart up the rate they wanted. They kept elevating the treadmill and talking to me. It wasn’t until the conversation turned to my mother-in-law that my heart rate increased enough to end the test.

I had surgery to remove the tumor and have been cancer free ever since. I weigh about the same now as I did then—too much.

Now, I’m changing the way I view my body—starting with spending more time viewing my body.

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