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By Marla Buchanan
IV Leader Opinion Page Editor

While sitting in a crowded theater, recently, I could smell the scent of culture. A mixture of success, affluence, and books--wafted about by an expectant crowd waiting for the performance to begin. I have noticed similar aromas in libraries, museums, and schools.

This incense drives out the stagnation of poverty, lost opportunities, and past failures and allows one's hopes to rise with the perfumed clouds.

I sit and fill my lungs with this smoke hoping that it will purify me and make a worthy vessel to be filled with knowledge. I can change my situation; education is the key.
Like a "zoo of the privileged," I look at the patrons as exotic creatures to study. I feel out of place in my cheap shoes and Wal-Mart outfit; I wonder if I blend in. Do I look out of place? Do the creatures spot an intruder who has slipped from behind an iron barrier and has occupied their space? Can they spot a rough-hewn soul swathed in cotton amid their velvet wrappings?

Oh, how I want to stroll about in their habitat (if only for a few hours). I feel like Jane Goodall doing fieldwork in a distant land. Sometimes to be caged is to be truly free. If those on the outside are the disadvantaged, then this misfit will use her degree as a hacksaw.
Justice has seemed to flee from me, and, at times this has brought me down so low that when I looked up I could only see the dark.

Several friends have reminded me of a universal truth, which is phrased in different ways, in many places: "What goes around, comes around ("You reap what you sow;" "Every action has a reaction;" the 'law' of karma, and the 'law of three'). What is the 'law of three'? Everything you put out, you get back threefold.

I rest in the eventual balancing of cosmic justice. Just as the tide turns, the sunrises and sets, and the seasons change--this law will be fulfilled. I can finally smile again.
As I write this, I think of Women's History Month, and all of the pain and degradation women have experienced throughout the cultures and centuries. I am just a fat, white, modern 36-yr.-old female with aspirations of a better life--a hope-filled future of security and happiness.

Yes, I'm fat. Fat in today's society is not ‘phat’ (cool). Men don't worry about their thighs, so why should I? (But I do). I am like millions of other (primarily western) women who hate their bodies. This doesn't make sense. Why should I hate a body that has borne and nurtured four children? A body that has weathered many storms, but still stands.

I am a mature female who has to constantly remind herself that her shell does not match her inner teenager--but that is o.k.
I am normal. I am like millions of other women who (as the majority) wear a size 12 and above.
In earlier times I would have been revered as a symbol of life and
fertility. A goddess. Who knows, maybe somebody would have sculpted a figure which could have been called, 'the Venus of Earlville.' One day this 'icon' came across the following poem, by writer, Dorothy Morrison, while surfing the web:

"All I am and all I'll be
Is really simply up to me.
Each day provides a blank new page
a beginning clean of life and age.
And how I live my life today--
in work, in magic, and in play--
will color what my life shall be
and rebirth a brand new me."

I put a copy of this on my dresser mirror so that I would be forced to read it every day (I also carry it with me). Here’s to many happy tomorrows...

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