Being a body

Photo credit: Booker T. Sessoms, 2022

I woke up with my hand in a tight fist, holding onto a handful of medicine that had existed only in my dreams. As consciousness rolled over me, I realized my hand was empty, but also that the health stuff is real. I really do need to make sure I take my “medicine:” drink water, do yoga, sit in silence, interact with care.

This happens a lot lately. My body mimics the direction I need to move in, setting boundaries before I know I even need them. I am grateful for the clarity this gives me, though not always for the realizations that come with it.

The physical reality of being in a human body. The conscious determination that something, or someone, no longer serves me well, even when it is hard to let go. As a smart person once said: the examined life is no picnic. Or put differently: it is sometimes easier not to know.

But I do know.

And what’s more, I know even when I try not to. The deep, feral, knowledge of my body is what drove me to parent, to overcome anorexia, to constantly seek to improve a relationship model with my spouse that I hadn’t learned to need. These were easy choices to make, but not easy to do. Sometimes it felt like fumbling in the dark. At moments, it still does. But the more I am in my body, the more light shines through.

This is what the medicine is for, ultimately. This is why I do yoga, why I sit, why I dance and journal and cry. This body is real, I am in it, and even when things are confused and messy, it will tell me where to go.