Pink – RAPHAELA ANGELOU

I have had my weight remarked on twice in the past week. “Have you lost weight? You look like you have.” It was meant to commend me, most likely on an imaginary stringent diet and ruthless exercise regime. It had the opposite effect. Was I considered overweight before? Not as acceptable? My weight is like the tide, it fluctuates. I don’t weigh myself, nor focus on my weight. I couldn’t give a flying fig, frankly. I need to walk and do weight’s to combat insulin resistance and fragile bones. That is all.

I am a busy lady, and any available head space is filled with other concerns. I think of my friend with liver disease, who is doing everything in her power to keep well. The friend undergoing chemotherapy. So many friends enduring pain and illness. I think of friendship and shared meals and toasting with a good drop of wine. Weight is rarely stable for anyone. Surgery, illness, puberty, pregnancy, infertility treatments, menopause and a perfect storm of endocrine issues sees to that. My aim is to live and do it well. I remember being an adolescent, and feeling empowered by how underweight I was. Filling myself with water before the dreaded weigh-in, eating a dreadful concoction for breakfast that the other girls insisted set like cement and filled you up for the day. Walks were treks of pain, lasting hours. I can’t recall noticing anything of beauty on these hikes. That wasn’t the purpose of undergoing them.

Time has changed everything. I walk with my little girl, holding her hand. I actually take deep, fresh pockets of air into my lungs. I notice beauty. If I were to focus on my weight, I wouldn’t have time to live. I have been there, taking my pocket calorie counter to the shops, weighing and examining everything I encountered. I ended up sick and depressed. It was the opposite of life.

Most people are surprised to hear that I am a hermit at heart. A solitary creature, who is used to keeping her own counsel. I made the distinction between needing “a fix” of people, to electing to enjoy their company. There is a difference. Usually when I enter a room, I feel awkward, and either stumble over my feet and walking stick, or blurt out something random, and unconnected to the conversation. On this occasion, I instantly felt at home. My friend Lisa is a nurse, and one of the gentlest and ethereal women I have had the privilege of knowing. Her beloved mother-in-law passed from breast cancer, and every year she organizes a high tea in her honour.

Colourful people arrive and donate goods, and money is raised to crush this disease. This year, the very talented Hannah Erika Crichton kindly donated her talents and time to sing for us. We were in a hall with women who had been through dark night’s of the soul, mind and body. I loathed the colour pink before having my daughter. I preferred black. I preferred anonymity. I now view pink as a colour of strength, of dreams and power. A colour you underestimate, until it knocks you to the ground with its force of will.

The women in the hall were strong, gutsy, plucky. I stood for a moment, and looked around. The ladies smiled amongst the easy banter at the tables. Bliss was produced with my friend Nicci’s cupcakes and Lisa’s divine soy candles. Pink, I loathed you for what you seemed to expect of me. I apologise in full. It was not you, but my culture that insisted I be demure, pandering and agreeable (at all times). Rather, you have always viewed women as strong, filled with vigour, a powerful voice, a buoyant heart and creative hands. I have had you all wrong. These women, cloaked in pink, have proven that to me.