Body Inconvenience
Originally posted April 7, 2023 on substack.
*Trigger warning on discussion of self image and body care.
How do you begin the care for the discarded, degraded, disdained?
How do you pick your body up and tell her you love her?
Tell her thank you,
for the first time?
Make her laugh?
Can she ever trust you?
She heard you.
“Ugh, my body is an inconvenience.”
How many times was it said before you finally noticed?
How many years did your body take the neglect,
simply because you couldn’t be bothered to care?
Not eating until your stomach is clenched tight and achey with echoes. Not drinking water until a cocklebur dry spot claws your throat. The messages must get so loud.
Instead of flowing with what is and paying attention to now, where the body lives, I attach my focus to self deprecating narratives that happened well outside this time and space. I play them over and over, like a skipping CD. These imaginings on loop while I pick my thumb until it bleeds, or push the palm of my hand until it bruises. Body working ever harder to wake me up from where I am when I am not where I am. Flying out into the past or the future and missing what is happening RIGHT NOW. The crow is cawing, the heart is tugging, the music is saying “what is it good for?”.
Despite my vitriol, despite me not caring as Body deserved, Body never gave up on me. Body knew I didn’t know. So Body dropped hints - until those words rumbled out of our head and onto our ears one day while we sat on the toilet, annoyed I had to stop what meaningless thing I was doing, to go to the bathroom(!). Mea culpa.
I had to come to terms with who I had become. Someone who believed my body was an inconvenience. My needs were inconvenient. I was an inconvenience.
Body speaks a language no one taught me to speak. And I didn’t realize Body was listening. I didn’t know Body was there hearing my violence towards them all these years. Body, sweet precious all-knowing, sentient creature. Body doing everything they can to get my attention. Body wants me to be present with them. Body wants me to stop thinking so cruelly about myself and the world.
And Body’s natural voice is quiet and gentle, only wanting to speak sweet lovelies to you. Body wants you to survive and thrive. Body wants to have fun! Wants to let you know in the most enjoyable way possible that they need your attention.
When you flow moment by moment in the present, you allow yourself the opportunity to hear what Body wants to tell you. Sometimes this communication skips and dips and bubbles and jumps. Body is constantly ready for movement and stillness. As Water whirls in place and changes the edges by which it is contained, so does Body. Always ready for movement and stillness, changing the edges by which we are contained.
The beauty is Body is Nature, ready to engage any moment we are. We have an embedded experience in order to explore this human phenomena of being both Nature Intelligence AND Human Intelligence. Intersecting existence within the confines of our own Being. Everywhere we go, Body is with us. Showing Body you care by listening, trusting, Being.
____________________
Is anyone ever where they are?
Even my dog pines for what’s beyond the door
Saxophone flutters my heart
Floats along stone walls
And let’s the pain of another in
I can see with eyes of compassion
For you are here and you are not here.
And I have been there. I am there now.
And how do we stay present
With so much going on
Energy whirling up and around
changing each other each moment
excruciating letting go
Living others’ expectations
forcing their way through your lenses
Past the bright spot between your eyes
Directly to the place of division.
We choose the places we inhabit.
My song surrenders to yours for I cannot fight anymore
I lay my best at your feet
I pray you see me
I pray you hear me
I pray the love becomes
