My earliest Zen teachers were failure and my father, in that order. The first thing I failed at was being physically big. This wasn’t my fault, of course, but kids always feel directly responsible for how they look. And how I looked was small.
In a Christmas photo from my youth my sister and I are wearing outfits we’ve received as presents: She is dressed in a ballet unitard and pointe shoes, her exaggerated smile seemingly achieved with the help of invisible pulleys. I, at six, am outfitted in cowboy couture — leather chaps and matching vest (sans shirt) with a terrified grin. Neither of us looks quite right. It’s as though our gifts have been switched: she is beefy and dense, while I am lithe and graceful, with skinny legs that would be adorable beneath a frilly pink tutu.
