Full Figured, an Anthology
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About this ebook
We assign so much value to our outer appearance while, too often, neglecting everything else. We forget that the love we deserve, the life we imagine possible, and the ability to become better than we are today, is not about our weight, but about how we weigh in on the things that truly matter. This collection of short stories and first-person narratives all bring us one moment in time closer to an ideal of how life can look when we see deeper than outward appearances. In the time we take to see someone, or ourselves, we’ve often missed so much while trying to achieve ‘sameness’ – and that’s where Full Figured breaks down the barriers that keep us from being important to all of the people who matter, including ourselves.
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Full Figured, an Anthology - Edited by Hugh O. Smith and Dee Dee Mozeleski
FULL FIGURED, AN ANTHOLOGY
Edited by
Hugh O. Smith and Dee Dee Mozeleski
Trois Coccinelles Publishing
NEW YORK
Full Figured, an Anthology
Published by: Trois Coccinelles Publishing
ISBN 978-1-63041-179-4
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2013 Hugh O. Smith
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover Design by David James
www.mokojumbie.net
Foreword
If only you could lose those last five pounds you’d be able to enjoy a day at the beach, find the man or woman of your fantasies, learn a foreign language, land that dream job, get elected president.
We assign so much value to our outer appearance while, too often, neglecting everything else. We forget that the love we deserve, the life we imagine possible, and the ability to become better than we are today, is not about our weight, but about how we weigh in on the things that truly matter.
When we began thinking about writing this anthology, we spent a lot of time playing around with the phrasing of ‘full figured’ because we didn’t want to focus solely on looks, or how others see us. We wanted to understand what it means to live a full figured life. The kind of life that makes others envious not because of how we look living it, but because of the unadulterated joy we feel with each new experience.
This collection of short stories and first-person narratives all bring us one moment in time closer to an ideal of how life can look when we see deeper than outward appearances. In the time we take to see someone, or ourselves, we’ve often missed so much while trying to achieve ‘sameness’ – and that’s where Full Figured breaks down the barriers that keep us from being important to all of the people who matter, including ourselves.
We are grateful to all of the writers in this collection. Full Figured started as an idea, a ‘what if’ and Stephanie, David and Dawn helped to create a storyline of possibilities. We thank them and we thank you, the reader, for taking the time to open the pages of this book.
We hope that each new chapter reminds you of just how wonderfully amazing you are – and that you will share your full figured stories with us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr.
You are what we imagine when we think of perfection.
Here’s to you living your very own version a full figured life.
Hugh O. Smith and Dee Dee Mozeleski
December 2013
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
Brooklyn, No. ~ Hugh O. Smith
How Far Is It From Inwood to Newark ~ Dee Dee Mozeleski
My Full Figured Life ~ Dawn Loban
Aisle Seven ~ David James
Layers ~ Stephanie Love
Her Body ~ Hugh O. Smith
Loving a Man Who Reads ~ Dee Dee Mozeleski
About the Contributors
Also by Trois Coccinelles Publishing
Credits
"I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait."
― Walt Whitman
Brooklyn, No
Hugh O. Smith
Jennifer slowly climbed the stairs into the M32 bus, ignoring the grumbled complaints of the impatient passengers waiting in line behind her. Both ankles hurt and she grimaced, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she dug the Metro Card from her battered and torn purse. The fare box swallowed the card with a whirring of gears, read the magnetic strip, and then a second later spit it out again. She glanced at the digital readout as she retrieved it. $6.00, it said, just enough left to get her to work and back home again tomorrow. She put the Metro Card back into the purse and shuffled slowly toward the back of the bus and the only open seat.
Jennifer never took a seat on the bus unless there were two seats open together, but the pain in her ankles was intense today and standing during the entire thirty-minute bus ride from Harlem up into the Bronx was not an option she would contemplate. In the contest between pain and embarrassment, pain won every time. There would be stares and comments but Abuela had taught her not to pay too much attention to people who would most likely end up in hell for their rudeness.
She arrived at the open double seat to the consternation of the seat’s sole occupant,