The Body Keeps It All

I wrote this years ago, drained and lost in my own body, so tired of being who I am. Sometimes I wish I could live in someone else's body--one without networks of knots that I have to use all my energy to untie just to feel like getting out of bed, just to feel like I'm a human worthy of anything at all. One where I don't feel betrayed by my own existence. One that allows me to live free from the constraints of the trauma it has withstood.

I often wish I was different; I wish I hadn't learned to ignore myself and leave myself behind. I wish I had learned to speak kindly to myself. I wish I'd learned it's ok to show up to the world just as I am, without the layers of shame I painted with a big smile on the face a character I created to feel safe, and to fly under the radar. I spent years fighting with myself and hated who I was and what my body was doing to me-- when all I needed was to be met with compassion and seen and heard. And not by anyone else, by myself-- all my parts and versions. Our bodies keep the score; they store the memories, they hold it all because our lives depend on it; and they can't stay quiet forever. And they won't.

It's painful being pitted against yourself, and I know so intimately the weight of living as if your body is a burden that can't ever be set down and that feels like it will be broken forever.

But if we listen, we can come to learn and believe that it is our greatest gift to have been protected, to have survived, all credit to the body that has endured and endured and endured, and woke up today, again, and every day before this one.

Though sometimes I feel like my own worst enemy, I am grateful for all of the defenses my body developed and deployed so I could get here, be here and stay here. And I am grateful to have befriended all the parts of me and learn they

never hated me at all.

Compassion over everything.🩵

On Transformation

I wonder if in the days before it emerges, a butterfly is scared of what's to come, of who she will be, if she will have done enough to hatch in full form or at least be able to fly. How many times did she have to tremble in fear to shake her old skin off before she was strong enough to surrender to the cocoon? Does she try to stop time and freeze herself in place so she doesn't have to face who she will be, the life she will live outside of her shell, her second womb, her safe and familiar and certain place? 

In here there are no answers, just waiting and trusting and brewing in the wisdom that all this time here has meaning and that, like everything else, it's temporary. This is

not home, it is home for now, one that she has created, formed and sunk into, to heal, grow and become. She sleeps soundly knowing that soon, she will wake up, look around, and for god’s sake feel whole and ready to fly. 

But does she ever wonder if any of it is real? How could she possibly transform into something of magnificence from inside this lonely, self-made straight jacket? Isn’t it nearly impossible for her to believe that the only effort required to become is to not put any forward at all? Dutifully crafted and customized to fit like a glove; doesn’t she ever confuse the shell for her own skin? 

She can only imagine what the trellises of her wings might look like, how easy it will feel to float, what wild flowers she’ll hang her hat on. To get there, first go home, be quiet, sit still, rest and wait with a promise from God that this shell is a necessary stage of transformation–soon enough she will transcend to see her trust and patience rewarded. 

But in the interim, between the slumber and the soft launch, does she dream about crumbling open to see how the colors in the trees have changed overnight? Does she hold onto hope that they are only more brilliant and bold than she remembered or could ever imagine? Or does she lose sight of the moment, worrying that time will tick too fast as soon as she steps outside? Does she question her decision to follow her instincts at all? 

This haven aspires to be forgotten, conspiring with the natural order to embody the 

blueprint and then disappear. Left empty with a heart full to the brim, frozen in time and swinging in the wind, it is whole even split wide open. For its labor it asks for nothing in return but for its fruit to feel free and to answer the call to return to the earth, to be held and reemerge. 

But does she sing lullabies to her sorrow before she leaves the sweet refuge that incubated her arrival? Does she have nightmares that she may not have detached and emerged far enough to let go and leap? How magical it is to exist and at the same time have yet to be born, does she know it’s her own gifts that created this home?  

She is lulled to sleep by the muffled sounds of the spinning world, the wind and the rain, the crackle of the branches suspended above, the rustle of the leaves around its crown. This season is for resting and recuperating after the hard work of preparing for the gestation.  

A butterfly does not argue with God, it just does. It just is. It trusts in the divine plan for its life which is, of course, to grow wings, go forth, fly and be free. Embody sunlight on a symmetrical, whimsical, purposefully ethereal bug body. Like stained glass under the sun, a metamorphosis that’s impossible to mess up, there she is, after all.

What's that saying,

"A daughter's first love is her father" or something ridiculous like that.

Or they say "little girls will grow up and search for their fathers in every person they meet", but I’ve been looking for my mother in everyone for my whole life.

The love of a mother is sacred, pure and unwavering. Relentless and enduring. A mother can’t help but to love their child across oceans, galaxies and lifetimes. A child can’t help but to desperately cry out for its mother, its source of life, its only vehicle for survival, to wish it lived behind her skin once more. And every time she leaves, its body ripped from her womb, left breathless, floating, hoping there are hands on the other side, if she’s not home before the first peek of daylight, no one is coming, no one is coming, no one is coming to save you. Feel crumbs in the pockets of ripped jeans, empty promises shaking in your fist, weaving in the air like the heart tied to your wrist. A child will tumble down highways and sing to the rivers, unfold the mountains, make birthday wishes, winded and listless, scrape their cheeks to keep from crying, to get back home to their mothers again. 

In my heart I am that child, sprawled out on my back, the sky as my witness, at the will of the currents, maybe someone will see me, holding my breath in case nobody sees me. 

I feel that loss deeply.