A typical Letter inventories the scribe's "relationship" with her carcass. Most often, as a teenager, that carcass was strong and supple, yet the scribe had no particular appreciation of this. The Wench chalks this up to being Young and Stupid. However, most Letters elevate the failure to appreciate one's body to the level of tragedy, Hamlet to the fifth power.
The Letters go on to catalogue the aging of the scribe's carcass in stomach-churning detail. Dimpled cellulite. Intertubes of rubbery fat that spill over the waistband. Arms that flap. Post-pregnancy sacks of crinkled skin. The reader cannot help but recoil at this fleshy Hall of Horrors. The reader also cannot help but ditch the donut and hop on the Stairmaster, toute suite.
But this misses the all-consuming, dreadful point of the Letter to my Body: To love one's carcass. It's not enough to resign yourself to the grim fact that saddlebags and wrinkles are an inevitable part of aging. No. One has embrace the porky thighs, cherish the crow's feet, luuuuurve the breast that droops two inches lower than the other.
The Wench has read many of these Letters. The writers insist the very act of addressing their bodies gave them great peace. The Wench considered the possibility that she was missing something. So she sat down and tried to compose a letter to her body, as well:
Dear Body:
What the hell happened to you? You disgust me.
P.S. You should really shave more often.
The Wench reiterates: How do women expect men to treat them with seriousness when they act with such silliness? Really, now. Do men write tearful poems to their flaccid penises, then post them on the Internet for millions to see? Do men waste bandwidth trying to conjure up hot-and-heavy love for their balding skulls?
'Course not. For all his flaws, the average male clings to his dignity.
The Wench asked her husband what he would write to his body about. The Wench confesses, she secretly hoped her husband would berate his body for all that nose hair. But her husband responded: "I don't need to write to my body. We're very close."
'Nuff said.
