Nila E. Sebastian has written an ode to the body that has called her home for 88 years. She says: “My body is not perfect, but I still feel comfortable in it.”
Now my body is old. Almost unexpectedly. In 2019, spinal canal stenosis and vertebral fractures were diagnosed, but today I climb the 96 steps to our apartment almost every day again. I have to accept that some things have become more difficult and that sometimes I need a stick. And yet I am still mobile. Still get compliments. Often by young men. I’ve never felt invisible, I’ve never flirted with my age, but now I ask for a seat on the subway or bus.
The white hair suits me. My lover still likes to touch my body, sensually and lovingly. And I still love my body.
Come to the world
On a cold Friday evening in February 1936, I was pulled roughly into the world with a pair of pliers. A girl. The doctor grabs my feet and lightly slaps my little bottom. A scream, then I gasp for air. The mother on the kitchen table is brought out of the anesthesia with light blows to the cheeks. The first bathroom is already ready. The usual duties of the midwife.
Dressed and diapered, I lie in the wicker basket, suck my thumb, am pushed into the dining room, where the cannon stove radiates heat, and am left alone.
Until the old neighbor says that she has heard me crying at night for weeks. Back then the rule was: never spoil a child. Screaming strengthens the lungs.
be a child
A childhood, not carefree, strictly Christian. No radio, sing yourself. Four siblings. I outgrew my cousin’s clothes, my sisters wore them out. We sang “God is love” in children’s church services and at home. Love and blows, more blows than love?
Security was almost only felt at Christmas, Easter and birthdays. Slaps and beatings for even minor offenses.
In the sandbox under the kitchen window, my sister would scream if I didn’t give her the shovel. Mom promptly came and spanked my butt. The old neighbor saved me again.
In the first year of school I wrote awkwardly on the slate. Was hit on the right hand with the slate box lid. Until the teacher realized: The girl is smart, but has terrible handwriting. I felt clumsy and stiff, even in gym class. To this day I still confuse right and left.
It felt good when my sister and I tickled each other in bed, someone caressed my cheeks or my back. It felt different between my legs.
Mom only gave me a goodnight kiss. I survived a tuberculosis infection, and when I had to sweat out an illness, Mom would wipe my wet forehead and tell stories.
Curious, I looked at my little brother’s body and compared. In April 1945, after spending nights on the mattress on the cold basement floor, the bed was wet every morning and I was ashamed. I don’t remember how long it took until the bed finally stayed dry. Colds, fevers, sore tonsils, headaches, sunburn, biting cold, bruises, scraped knees, scratches, cuts, all made me uncomfortable. But it passed.
A young girl
In 1947, small bumps grew under the nipples. Disappeared again. The hunger period between 1945 and 1949, only being able to eat enough every now and then.
In 1949, childhood was finally over. We had moved from a town in Thuringia to a Franconian village and stayed on a farm to escape hunger: milking cows every morning before school started, spreading manure on the meadows at lunchtime, helping with the tilling of the fields and the harvest. My slight body kept pace with the adults in most of the farm chores: bending over, carrying cans and baskets.
It took years for me to become a woman. But why did it have to hurt so much every four weeks? All the blood and the cloth bandages on the line that led the men to make mocking comments.
In 1959 I did an agricultural apprenticeship. At community college I did folk dancing every week, even though my parents considered dancing a sin. But only flying is more beautiful than dancing. As a nurse’s assistant in a hospital without an elevator, the drag caught up with me again.
wife and mother
Then came Horst, the man who wanted to marry me. I became pregnant and my body changed. The breasts hurt and grew. Milk squirted out of them. The cut, the seam. Pain until everything healed.
Moving, pregnancy, second child in 1966. The tailbone hurt when sitting. Dislocated from the back of the little one’s head. Lower back pain, sciatica. And yet I still felt ecstasy again and again.
At the time of the moon landing in 1969, I was deprived of the ground: Horst was convicted and fled prison. Never came back. The three-year-old was in hospital after being hit by a car. I lost weight and my nerves were frayed. Nevertheless, I continued to work in the coat factory.
But I recovered. Found support in a parent group. Did further training and worked in the office.
My beautiful body. Years later, an abortion. Then the sterilization. The doctor made an incision in my stomach and I was left with a disfiguring scar. No more hormone pills. Be able to fulfill your sexual needs without fear. The number of lovers is in double digits.
1993 trial of primary therapy. Screaming, feeling the emotional pain of decades.
The man for life
Then the man for life. He had a beautiful body, was tender, our bodies harmonized. I was also beautiful, my skin was supple. Be touched, just feel it and feel the thrill. I could do without that less than I could do without physical union.
Being together, sinking into each other. My body melted under his hands. That is still the case today. Engelbert loves my lush breasts, despite the signs of aging.
When we climbed mountains over 3,000 meters high on vacation, I was required to perform at my best. But at the summit I felt joy, happiness and energy flowing through me. Another challenge: climbing, secured on a rope. The fear of heights almost completely disappeared.
Menopause
First outbreaks of sweat, harbingers of the climacteric: Hurray, finally fire woman, the great freedom! But then: high blood pressure, heart palpitations, with blue lights flashing to the hospital.
My body didn’t love me anymore. I was angry with him. Insomnia, personality changes. I dragged myself through the day and tried in vain to find peace at night. Hormones. My body was falling apart and the scales showed more and more kilos.
The blood values were then perfect again when the heartbeat was no longer slowed down with beta blockers. But my heart has been making itself felt again and again since diphtheria in 1950. At that time the body almost gave up. My father took me home when he heard I was sick. It was almost too late.
Gratitude: Accepting your body
It was difficult for me to show myself naked for a long time. I learned how to properly accept my body in tantra workshops. There I laid down my clothes in a circle of three or four people sitting around. Naked in the middle, I told you everything I didn’t like about my body. Afterwards everyone said what he or she found beautiful about me. A wishful touch. That was good. The emotional pain mostly disappeared. Later I had myself photographed naked during Ann-Marlene Henning’s “Make Love” on ZDF.
Feldenkrais was also good for me. Move consciously. Be one with the body. In the past, my knees were often banged up, my elbow was broken twice, and my teeth were broken. Now my body and I are in harmony. If I fall, he won’t let me down. My eyes are still bright blue and I get compliments.
My body wants me to treat it well, honor it and love it. I am aware of it. When my feeling is blocked, Body Scan, a kind of autogenic training, brings me back into my body.
In the morning in bed I often walk from my left toe through my entire stiff body. Now I can also deal with the emotional pain.
If at some point I fall asleep forever, my heart stops and consciousness fades, will my body be as worn out as an oft-washed shirt or will I be able to entrust it to the earth intact?
The author: Nila Sebastian, 88, is married for the second time and has two sons and two grandchildren. Until 1999 she worked at the TU Berlin in the office of the Department of Educational Sciences. She has been attending painting courses since the 1980s and has exhibited her paintings alone and in groups. In 2015 she published her autobiography “Wege und Detouren”, which can be downloaded free of charge at biografienforum.de. Photos and texts from her can also be found on the photographer Mirja Maria Thiel’s website under “All This Love” (mirjamariathiel.com).