a piece of visual art

I drive past a hoarding advertising a bikini swimsuit. Michelangelo woudln’t have sculpted the body better, all in the right place. Especially the flat tummy, as flat as an iroing board – speaks to the world of the ideal of a body bearing no marks of motherhood. And yet it offers so limited space that it may not house life

I should express my gratitude to the shop which put up the advert. Because I start thinking with gratefulness about all my pregnancy stretch marks, and all the additional centimeters in my waist, which will never shrink to the shape of a teenager. Because all those marks remind me of the greatest secret of my life: that you can give shelter to someone who wasn’t there a while ago.

And I think how much of a lie is hidden in this visual ideal of a woman, whom you might count in pieces and sell together with the bikinis. And I can only imagine how much more free and rich in our hearts we, women, would be, if such pictures weren’t distributed to us – for no charge and everywhere.

Małgosia