My Hips: A Reflection on 27
By: Samantha Burmeister
Tags: 27 Club, Refrigerator, Life, Birthday, Siblings

Growing up, my mom, brother, and I lived in an old house with a big kitchen. Looking back, the kitchen wasn’t probably all that big, but I remember everything about the fridge.

From age 7 to about 12, I remember the three of us packing lunches together in the mornings, talking about our days, and always referring to the calendar on the fridge. The fridge was a showcase, a museum, and an accountability partner. The fridge had the answers to most questions.

Was it this weekend that we go to dad’s? Check the fridge.

What time is soccer practice? Check the fridge.

Did you sign my report card? Check the fridge.

Brother and I, in the kitchen

I remember getting a new fridge one year, trading in the ugly green model for something a little more aesthetically pleasing. I remember that my mom printed off and hung up a color-coded calendar every couple of weeks for the upcoming month, and I remember a poem she hung up there one time. I don’t know if it was there for a week or a year, but I remember us saying it together occasionally.

The poem was Homage To My Hips by Lucille Clifton. ( She reads it here) My mom and I would get really soulful when we read it, powerfully reciting, “these hips are MIGHTY HIPS”.

While I won’t say that I grew up in an ultra-progressive, super body-pos household, I did get to grow up watching the women in my life be powerfully independent, and I got to grow up encouraged to read powerful words by powerful women.

Three generations of my family’s women

I grew up with that poem in the back of my head, and I carried it into 27.

As I look back on what 27 meant, I’ll admit it’s been a wild ride.

It started off in Florida, dodging a situation that could bring any person to their knees. I faced 27 with my shoulders back and chin high.

I was told other people’s truths about my abilities and discerned what their words meant. I told 27 what I needed to hear.

I moved halfway across the country and redefined my goals. I came out ahead and get to do work that lights up my brain.

I experienced loss, and in turn, celebrated life.

So, what did 27 teach me?

Amongst all the things that 27 taught me to celebrate, I am choosing to summarize 27 in one stanza: These hips are MIGHTY hips.

I know that I have been given the tools to succeed. I’ll admit- it is so easy to get caught up in all the things or places that others say I should be, or to let people tell me how I should behave or look. I’m a woman in 2019, there’s no shortage of opinions available.

However, 27 taught me about my own power. It brought me confidence in my ability to do quality work. 27 gave me a new determination to dream.

27 brought me a love for my body. Not just a shallow ‘like what you see in the mirror’ love, but gratitude. I am grateful to have been given a body that is able. I can celebrate what I am able to do because I am lucky enough to do it. I can sustain hours in planes or cars. I can climb mountains and pitch tents and dance. I can breathe canned air 100 feet underwater and I can run a 5k. I can overcome anxiety and heal from blisters and brush off words and walk away from situations that no longer serve me.

These hips are FREE hips.

They go where they want to go, they do what they want to do.

These hips are MAGIC hips.

Where will these hips take me in 28? I don’t know, check the fridge.