Ka mua, ka muri—When I Was and When I Am

Abstract

Kia ora e hoa, wishing wellness and vitality, to you, dear friend. This piece is a window into the realities of being a fat Māori girl and woman. It offers insights into the sense making, intimacies, and intricacies of being a fat Māori girl, and now woman. This piece is whakapapa, the layering of genealogy, of thought, of realities, of experiences, of identities. It offers a glimpse into a time of whakapapa, of how I have made sense of my world in my many identities. Here, I share poems written throughout my research journey and my relationship navigating insider-research, being embedded in the research, being the research, and the ways in which I actualize Kaupapa Māori research. This piece opens with a karakia, a spiritual offering of safety, of welcome, and starts with the poem When I was, sharing moments and memories from ages 5 to 33. It then transitions to the poem When I am, a poem of potential, which connects back with the atua Hinenuitepō, a powerful ancestor and wahine deity, as well as her stories, transitions, and Kaupapa that she has shared with me, so that I may make sense of the world and this Kaupapa, the ways she has guided me on my journey. It then ends with a karakia, a spiritual offering of safety and cleansing, a farewell, to you e hoa.

Tīmatanga:

• Nau mai, haere mai, ki tēnei tohu aroha, ki tēnei karanga tūturu, ki tēnei karere aroha. Nau mai, whakatau mai.

 

He karakia:

• Manawa mai te mauri Nuku
• Manawa mai te mauri Rangi
• Ko te mauri kai au, he mauri tipua
• Ka pākaru mai te pō
• Tau mai te mauri
• Haumi e, hui e, taiki e1

1. When I Was

When I was 5, I was mocked for eating my lunch that came wrapped in paper. I begged my Mum to use gladwrap, so I could fit in. How could I fit in as a fat girl standing out. This is the first time I experienced a class difference. Were we poor because we used paper? (Everyone uses paper now, huh?) I should hide my eating from people. I was 5.

When I was 6, they had sausage sizzles at school. I fucking love sausage sizzles—a sign of summer. I ordered two. Ohh ngā karu2 looking at me. I was 6.

When I was 7, my friends’ Mum told me that it was okay that I was fat since it was because of my health issues and medication, unlike her stepdaughter, who had no excuse for being fat; she just ate too much. My Mum had to protect me and explain to people ‘why I was fat’ so people would treat me better. People treated me better when they knew it was ‘outside of my control’. I was 7.

When I was 8, I couldn’t be a ballerina; ballerinas aren’t big. I was 8.

When I was 9, I was sent to a dietitian. I remember thinking she was the most thin, ‘unhealthy’-looking, old, reserved white woman I had ever seen, prim and proper, wearing an ironed skirt. She looked like she would break in the wind. She kept asking if I put sugar on my Just Right cereal. ‘Who the fuck puts sugar on Just Right, it’s muesli?’, I thought at the time. I was so confused. I started monitoring my eating in a 3B1 notebook; ‘FOOD’ was the title page. Each day, a record of what I ate. I was mad when there were lots of words on the pages. I was 9.

When I was 10, I went clothes shopping with my parents. None of the clothes in the children’s stores fitted me. My nana always tried to force me into Pumpkin Patch. It felt like hours of trying on things that did not fit my body. I was close to tears. I remember a sense of relief when finding Shanton, a women’s clothing store, with a few on-sale items that fit. A skirt that was orange with purple polka dots, fa(t)shun. I loved the clothes as a 10 year old, even if they went with nothing, including me. I was 10.

•   When I was 10, I had an ultrasound to diagnose polycystic ovarian syndrome. I had drunk plenty of water, so my bladder was full. At 10, I only knew that pregnant women got ultrasounds. How strange for me. The technician could not see my ovaries. I thought she was going to stab the wand through my fat stomach. It was agony, she was angry, my fat in the way—she could not see. Her boss came over and found them straight away—no stabbing, no piercing, no frustration required. I was 10.
  •   When I was 10, my Mum was financially struggling due to failure in social welfare and discrimination. My brothers and I never went without, although I remember vividly the way she lost weight very quickly, dropping clothing sizes like nobody’s business. She wore these now-back-in-fashion, three-quarter cargo pants that she could not fill out—her stomach non-existent. I saw my mother wasting away and getting complimented as she went through poverty, starvation, and taumahatanga. I was 10.

When I was 11, my Mum and doctors explained that because I am big and because of the drugs I had to take, I might get my period early. Some girls as young as 8 get it. Big girls always get it early. Tomato sauce—some of them called it. Fat girls get periods early. I was 11.

•   When I was 11, my classroom teacher brought a set of scales into class. That morning, I panicked and cried to my Mum that I did not want to be weighed and shamed in front of everyone. She said that if that happened, I could say ‘it’s against my civil rights and I refuse’. That sentence played over and over in my head all day. The scales were for weighing students for the under 60 kg rugby team. I was so anxious, so scared. I was 11.
  •   When I was 11, we were forced to walk every morning in school, around the block. We got a detention if we did not make it back in time. I was slow. I don’t power walk. It doesn’t bring me joy. I faked twisting my ankle to get out of detention, and judgmental eyes were on the slow fat girl. Why is there a time limit and punishment if it is meant to be good and joyous for you. I was 11.

When I was 12, I got my first ikura.3 With a migraine, she came and lasted a few days. My Mum had prepared me, prepped me so well. I cried and thought, ‘wow, every month’. Not for me, my ikura was every 3. My doctors put me on the pill, among other things, to help with my cycle. How does a 12 year old learn and know to feel like a hoe for being on the pill so young. Doctors said, “if you just lost weight, your periods might be regular”. I was growing. I was 12.

When I was 13, I started high school. my ovaries sabotaging me, 13, a new school, with an ikura that was non-stop for 3 months with heavy blood clots. A fat 13-year-old girl who has to go to the bathroom often at a new school, a white school, how horrible my body was being to me, how horrible teenage eyes can be. I was 13.

When I was 14, I lost 30 kilos in a month—a medication change. Every week over summer we had to buy new clothes for me. My new shorts I had bought weeks before were now too big. Clothes were expensive for fat people; we safety-pinned them. I cried with guilt one night because I was not hungry and did not want to eat a burrito for dinner. Crying over ill-fitting pants and tacos, ko thinness*(happiness) tēnei?4 I was 14.

•   When I was 14, A boy saw my ID photos from this year and last year and said, “wow, you look better this year”. Earlier that same day, my friend and I had read a ‘women’s’ magazine that said, “if a guy tells you that you look good this year, what he’s saying is that you looked like a dog the previous year”, he kurī tēnei,5 woof? I was 14.

When I was 15, I broke my ankle and dislocated my kneecap at school. I loved sport, always followed with the subsequent statement, ‘believe it or not’. No one liked the nurse, how whakamā, so I walked, hobbled, 10 min across the school, on broken legs, to see the nurse to avoid her bringing down the wheelchair and struggling to push me back uphill to sickbay. I was fat, and she was a tiny, short, petite woman. When I got in the wheelchair from her office to the car, she said loudly that the tires were flat; a protective, yet painful, decision of mine to hikoi nē.6 I was 15.

When I was 16, I had my first kiss. We had not met before, and we never met again. I went home to be ghosted before ghosting was te mea.7 Being fat is hard. I had a fat friend, and she had a boyfriend. She had a ‘pretty face’ though. Maybe fat girls find love, hei aha. I was 16.

•   When I was 16, I had a bronchoscopy. I was put to sleep, and images of my lungs were taken. I woke up and realized straight away that I was in another bed, in my drugged-up haze, head spinning, trying to apologize. I felt so embarrassed and felt sorry for the doctors and nurses who had to lift me into this bed. I was heavy. I was 16.

When I was 17, ‘free weekends’ was a thing; chatting to new people was a thing. We passed numbers around like they were on fire or candy, engari, prefaced with ‘believe it or not’, I am not a sweet tooth. I chatted to one boy. He seemed cool. He gave my number to all his friends. Weird, I thought—one of them knew me in person. When he found out it was me, he called me a fucking fat bitch and told all his friends, kāre he ‘free’ nē rā.8 I was 17.

•   When I was 17 we had our school ball, the theme was Moulin Rouge, we were told not to dress slutty, wild nē, we all went underage drinking at a venue in town for our after-ball, I kissed a guy or two, no one from my school had seen me interact with the boys there, someone filmed the fat girl kissing some guy, they passed that video round like it was fire or candy, I never saw it, my best friend at the time beat up the guy who took it lmao, did not stop me ‘shrinking’, kāre he ‘free’ nē. I was 17.

When I was 18, I transitioned from the children’s hospital to the adult’s. My new specialist said he did not believe polycystic ovarian syndrome was ‘a thing’ and that losing weight would be good. Cool, do you have ovaries, pōkokohua. I had no specialist again for years, fat with a ‘fake disease’, left in the wind. I was 18.

When I was 19, I wore a dress to town. It was short, and I am tall. I had bike shorts on underneath. I walked down Queen Street as cars of men screamed and laughed at me. No one wore long dresses back then, but fat girls should cover up. Abuse is fine for fat strangers, huh? Hei aha, he mōmona ahau.9 I was 19.

When I was 20, I accidentally dated a HeadHunter. It happens, don’t ask. He picked me and my friends up from town once. After they left, he told me how beautiful they were. I knew he meant thin and beautiful, unlike me. I was 20.

When I was 21 (ooh the year of 21sts), it took such a long time to find a 21st dress for me that fit. It was slimming, I had a figure, and I did feel beautiful. Having clothes that fit does that. A ‘leather and lace’-themed birthday. I was loved and I was spoiled. I remember running across Karangahape Road in town at 3am in my leather skirt, with my hair dancing in the wind. Why could I not always feel beautiful like this, heoi anō.10 I was in bed by 8am, the hangover, tino.11 I was 21.

When I was 22, I graduated from university with a bachelor’s degree. I had always imagined a thin Ashlea at graduation. All future imaginings were of thin Ashlea—she achieves western aspirations. I was 22.

•   When I was 22, I met my ex, a fat person like me, but no one had ever told me sex while fat involved Tetris. I’d never seen fat sex before, never heard about it. How was I to know fat bodies move differently. I was 22.

When I was 23, I went to the movies with my ex. He was fatter than me. I didn’t know the movie theatre seats had arms, he couldn’t fit, I was frustrated and embarrassed for him. I was a small-enough fat to not have to worry about chairs with arms. I hadn’t thought about it before, a privilege I didn’t know I had. I had just started a degree in public health, my pathway to a PhD. The irony is now, not lost on me. I was 23.

When I was 24, I hurt my back and could not get out of bed for 2 weeks, could not walk properly for months, and I lost 10 kilos from not doing and not eating and being in agony. My specialist asked how I did it and how I lost weight. I said I was bedridden and in agony, and with that thin-white-man pursed-lip nod, he signaled both polite approval and sympathies. Numbers going down no matter what, huh. I was 24.

When I was 25, I got an IUD. My specialist said it would be the best option for me. When I told her it was not working for me, she said, “well, given your weight, we really should have put two IUDs in, hah”. How does making a fat joke fix my pain? I spent 3 years with it before I was heard. She also suggested eating half a can of tuna for lunch and that if my family spent $20 each on me for Christmas, they could buy me SureSlim. I nodded, unsure of why it did not sit right with me at the time. Not an endocrinologist, not a gynecologist, yet this woman was meant to be the top in her field in the country. So, why was she so fucking useless at everything to do with me. I was 25.

When I was 26, I put on more weight, thesis weight, and re-gaining back injury weight. I asked my ex to lose weight with me, to put in effort, my unhappiness in my body profound, the inaccessibility taumaha, we split later that year when he almost died from weight-related issues. I was 2612.

•   When I was 26, I travelled overseas for the first time. Terrified of fitting in the plane seats, I hadn’t flown far before, I heard fat people don’t fit in plane seats, I was lucky or should I say privileged enough to fit. I saw such beautiful things and hated all the photos of me being fat and, in wonder, across the world, staring at beautiful things. I was 26.

When I was 27, I began dating and hoetivities, exploring, finding out what I wanted, what I deserved, what I enjoyed. I briefly dated someone, when getting dressed, they grabbed my pants as I reached for them and looked at the size, and gave me a side-eye and mocking look, I snatched them back, and was single once again. I was 27.

•   When I was 27, my friend told my personal trainer I had lost 10 kgs. I was not trying to lose weight at that time. He said he was proud of me. That unsettled me so I wanted to strengthen my injuries, and I liked gymming; it is the adult version of sporting, engari. I was 27.

When I was 28, I started my PhD, looking at body sovereignty for fat Indigenous13 wāhine. I couldn’t say the word ‘fat’ for a long time, he paru tērā kupu.14 I have been fat since I was probably two years old. I told people I was looking at body sovereignty for Indigenous wāhine. If I said ‘fat’, people stir, people show their discomfort with the kupu, with the kupu being said by the arewhana in the room. ‘You’re not fat, you’re beautiful’. I am both. They are not mutually exclusive, despite what you have been taught and conditioned to think. I first started identifying myself as fat, calling myself fat, with fear and uncomfortability, I watched the room shift as I ‘came out’ as fat for the first time. I was 28.

When I was 29, I started posting non-Fat Girl Angled pics online. I went to a Fat Pool Party and blew my own fat mind. My fat stomach hanging down, my underwear showing my belly, my fat face and chin(s) all over my social media. I cut my fat blanket of femininity, my hair short because I wanted to, not because it was ‘flattering’, *read thinning*. I was 29.

•   When I was 29, I started using fat, real, pics of me on the tindersphere, how ordinary, how liberating hoki. I was 29.
  •   When I was 29, I got measles again, and a brain injury. Tthe disconnect from mind and body prolific, how does one reconcile the two, attempting to be an academic, during an epidemic, in the beginning of a pandemic no less. I was 29.
    •   When I was 29, I met my now-husband, a beautiful mōmona Māori man. We had a little COVID-19 lockdown love and met in the emergency department of a hospital after he had an accident. A beautiful mōmona Māori man I was quite smitten with, suddenly being his hauora support person, watching him experience racist fatism in receiving his (un)care, equipment with restrictive weight ranges, inaccessible medical language. Hei aha, I met my love. I was 29.

When I was 30, 3 days before I turned 30, I gave a talk on fat bias and weight stigma during a pandemic on an international panel for FoodNetwork Canada. A fat Māori wahine like me. A month into being 30, I have given talks on being fat and fat bias, outing myself time and time again. Kaua e whakamā.15 Turning 30, such a milestone, so anticlimactic in a pandemic and lockdown engari. I wore a beautiful polka dot dress, no bra, Hinenuitepō on my chest for all to see. I am a Fulbright Scholar at 30, a fat Māori wahine like me. This was 30. I have unlearned so much, and yet there was still so much to un-learn. I found myself reflecting on the years that were. In 30 years, I spent 3 not trying to change my body, not trying to shrink myself. Three years spent un-learning thirty years of oppression. Heoi anō, he mahi tonu.16 I was 30.

•   When I was 30, my eldest brother had a massive, disabling stroke and a second stroke in hospital. A few weeks before his stroke, he questioned a ‘complimenting weight loss is a judgement’ post I put on my social media. He had been engaging in ‘health behaviors’ to attempt to improve oppression and genetically based ‘ill’/lack-of-health. I was hōhā and told him to go read Yr Fat Friend. I have watched his body sovereignty be removed, his healthist informed behaviors, no savior for his agency. Kāre au i te mōhio kia mahi ki tēnā.17 I was 30.

When I was 31, tēnei tau, he tau-maha.18 My mother (and I), carer(s) without the title or support due to health, social welfare, and government systems that refuse to operate equitably. Support agencies that fill the gaps, the non-for-profits, do not operate in COVID-19 lockdowns. My body is no longer my own, stress-induced weight loss, stress-induced body dysmorphia, stress-induced disordered eating, stress-induced burnout are my present. My agency has been worn away, taken with it, my bed, my bedroom, my PhD, my work. The audacity of a poor, fat, chronically ill, wahine Māori to dream so big. I was 31.

•   When I was 31, I had no clothes that fit, my body shrinking, my clothes no longer fitting. Attempting to buy new clothes for a shrinking body as it plays mental mind games with me and my no space yet another challenge. People notice, people compliment, as I run away from the taumaha and live out of a bag of ill-fitting clothes now. I was 31.
  •   When I was 31, my body fought back and regained the weight, differently than before, again, my clothes don’t fit, I am uncomfortable in my new, different fatness. My body healing the harm of stress, my disordered eating moving into intuitive eating, weight loss and eating disorder recovery always means weight gain. My body did not feel like mine again. Maybe it would again soon. I was 31.
    •   When I was 31, my love proposed to me. A beautiful mōmona Māori man took me to my favorite place, Piha, and proposed to me. I never imagined an engaged Ashlea, a loved Ashlea; future imaginings of her, in a wedding dress, are mōmona. We are mōmona. I was 31.

When I was 32, I ran away from the taumahatanga, on my Fulbright to Ka Pae ‛Āina o Hawai‛i. They talk about ‛āina mōmona here, and they talk about wai mōmona19 here. My fat wahine Māori body seems so at home here. I did mālama ‛āina days in the lo‛i kalo,20 where Aunty said our lo‛i was curvy like wahine. I did mālama wai days in the loko i‛a,21 where Uncle spoke of wai mōmona and how it transcended and connected other Indigenous cultures. I connected with Pele, as she called to me in Te Pō, guiding my thinking, giving me manaaki away from my whenua. I connected with Indigenous whanaunga across Turtle Island, a fat Māori wahine like me, seeing the Grand Canyon and the river that runs deep within it with the Hualapai Peoples. A fat Māori wahine like me, exploring the unceded lands of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Musqueam, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Squamish, and səlilwətaɬ Tsleil-Waututh Nations, navigating the suspension bridges of Capilano Park and injuring my elbow on the old-school arcade games in San Fransisco. They talk about ‛āina mōmona here, the land that is nourish(ed/ing), the land that you look after, and it looks after you. I was 32.

•   When I was 32, I won a New Zealand Health Research Council Māori Health Emerging Researcher First Grant for my Kaupapa, “Mana Mōmona: Exploring Fat (Bias) within Health Spaces for Māori” to expand this Kaupapa into fat bias in health spaces. A fat Māori wahine like me, being funded by the HRC. Wow. I was 32.

When I was 33, ka hoki ki Aotearoa.22 I re-learned what being home meant, what home means. I have done many kōrero on my Kaupapa, on more than my research. At conferences, on podcasts, in lectures, in communities. I have felt both a sense of tau and like an impostor. I went to Hawai‛i to heal, I returned under a false assumption I would return to systemic oppression my whānau are experiencing somehow better or over. Perhaps that is the danger of hope as a political strategy. The Kaupapa is still here, still strong, my tinana is tired, but she is mōmona. I was 33.

•   When I was 33, I had a full page spread in New Zealand Women’s Weekly, a fat wahine Māori like me. My tāmoko and fat puku showing, talking about fat bias, sharing kōrero. I was 33.
  •   When I was 33, I married my beautiful, mōmona Māori man. A glorious celebration of our mōmona aroha, wrapped in our kākahu, dressed in our clothes made for fat, Māori bodies, in love, in fatness, our love coveted and desirable, boundless, limitless, unrestricted. A mōmona aroha. I was 33.
    •   When I was 33, I submitted my PhD. I am softer, more worn away, my rigid edges now soft corners, my softness hard, full of acceptance, of resolve, of hei aha, my activism—tired, living a life as a fat, chronically ill wahine Māori full of systemic challenges. I am not the problem, we are not the problem, colonization, white supremacy, systems that are not made for us, koinei te raru.23 Being fat is hard, being Māori is hard, being wāhine is hard, ōtira,24 fatism makes being fat hard, racism makes being Māori hard, sexism makes being wāhine hard, coloniality and white supremacy make things hard, make our world inaccessible, not designed for us. Engari, ka whawhai tonu mātou.25 What is body sovereignty? I do not know, engari, I continue, my fat wahine Māori body continues, to be mōmona, to have mana tinana. I am 33.

2. When I Am

When I am with my friends

I am Hineahuone, molded by their love, their learnings, I am embodying sovereignty

When I am with my whānau

I am Pīwaiwaka, a fierce kaitiaki, always standing, always resisting, always advocating for what is right, I am embodying sovereignty

When I am a doctor

I will be Hinenuitepō, remembering who the fuck I am, razor-sharp obsidian teeth, never letting myself shrink like Māui, I am embodying sovereignty

When I am a tipuna

I will be Te Pō, holding space for the potentially sovereign moko-puna o te ao, a wāhi tapu of potential, I will embody sovereignty

Mutunga:

I share these poems as a reflection of whakapapa. To whakapapa is to layer with purpose, connection, and relationality, the placement of one thing upon another from the foundation (Barlow 1994; Burgess and Painting 2020; Mahuika 2019; Pihama 2019; Te Rito 2007; Tuhiwai Smith 2021). Whether it be the layering of childhood experiences leading me to the point of doing my PhD, or the relationality through which I embody sovereignty, whakapapa here expands and generates. This, e hoa, dear friend, requires something of you; it requires you to think beyond the definitional understandings of whakapapa as genealogy or being centered upon our human relations. Matua Moana Jackson often spoke of never-ending beginnings and the notions that we are a point, a moment in time, within which the past, present, and future converge.

Perhaps these events in isolation are simply the memories of a young, fat, Māori girl. However, like our whakapapa, we are never in isolation or truly occurring alone. Like our whakapapa, we are built upon one another, much like each moment shared here builds upon itself. Like our whakapapa, we are woven into each other, woven into the research, becoming part of a narrative, ever more meaningful because there is no isolation.

As Jenny Lee-Morgan (2019) shares, our whakapapa, our pūrākau, our stories are always whakapapa and always connected:

“At our best, pūrākau tellers, listeners, practitioners, and researchers are always conscious of the insider out, because like our trees, pūrākau are always and only relational” (p. 165).

These stories, these memories, these experiences, like us, are in relation, always, they are whakapapa. Nā reira, koinā te whakapapa, koinā te ira hoki.

That is whakapapa, and that is the point.

Tihei mauri ora.

Karakia Whakamutunga

Te whakaeatanga e	It is completed
Te whakaeatanga e	It is done
Tenei te Kaupapa ka ea	We have completed our purpose
Tenei te wananga ka ea	Completed our kaupapa
Te mauri o te Kaupapa ka ea	Let the purpose of gathering rest for now
Te mauri o te wananga ka ea	Let the vitality of our discussions replenish
Koa ki runga	We depart with fulfilled hearts and minds
Koa ki rara	Bonded in our Kaupapa and kotahitanga
Haumi e, hui e, taiki e.
Karakia written by Scotty Morrison; translation edited by the author according to this Kaupapa.

Glossary:

Ahau—I, me

Ao—world

Aotearoa—Land of the long white cloud

Aroha—love, compassion, affection

Engari—but

hei aha—never mind, anyway

hikoi—walk, journey

Hineahuone—the first wahine birthed and created from Kurawaka, from Papatūānuku

Hinenuitepō—Atua of transition, Te Pō

Hōhā—annoying, irritated, bored

Hoki—return, and

Ikura—menstruation

Kaitiaki—guardian, keeper

Kākahu—clothing

kāre—not, none

kāre au i te mōhio—I do not know

kaua—do not

kōrero—conversation, talking, discussion, dialogue

kupu—word

kurī—dog

Māui—a demi-deity of Māori and other Moana Peoples

Mokopuna—grandchild(ren), descendants

Mōmona—fat, bountiful, plentiful, nourish

Nē—is that so, is that right, right?

Otirā—however, but

Paru—dirty

Pīwaiwaka—fantail

Pōkokohua—strong insult, expression of anger or curse

Puku—stomach, abdomen, to swell, seat of thought and contemplation

tāmoko—Māori tattooing

tau—settle, to be at peace

taumaha—heavy, burden, trauma

te pō—the night, the darkness, the world beyond this one

tēnei—this

tērā—that

tinana—body, real, center

wāhi tapu—sacred, set aside place

whakamā—embarrassed, ashamed, apprehensive

whānau—family beyond the western definition, loved ones

 

Ōlelo Hawaiʻ̕i:

ʻāina—land, earth

loʻi kalo—wetland taro farm

mālama ʻāina—cherish, nourish, look after the land and earth

mōmona—fat, bountiful, plentiful, nourished

Pele—Pelehonuamea Hawaiian ancestor, akua of fire and volcanoes

wai—waters