My body’s memory feels closer to me than the one I currently live in. Nostalgia is not a common feeling for me, yet I rampantly reminisce of a body that was. I identify with my body of ten years ago; lean, fast, forgiving, flexible, resilient, smooth. A body I then criticized (though less than I do now).
I am mad at my body. I deserve that body back. I work ten times harder, eat ten times healthier, move ten times more. And I am rewarded with achy joints, a softening belly, and tight stiff muscles.
I am mad at my body. It does not tell the tale of my hard work. It makes me feel like an imposter. No one could think I work hard looking at my soft body. They’ll think it a lie. They’ll think me a fraud.
I am mad at my body. For not remembering how to bend and flex and contort and spring and maneuver. For needing more care and rest. And when I allow myself respite, allow myself stillness or pleasure or indulgence, I am met with guilt.
I am mad at my body. Forcing me to trade mental fitness for physical, pain for wisdom, a wasting body for a growing intellect. For a body ages less gracefully than a mind.
Honestly, my anger at my body, my anger stems from one part fear and one part vanity. Will my body serve me in ten years? Twenty? Will I be too rigid, too thick, too sore, too broken, to do the work I need to do in this world? To receive the love I crave in this world? To receive the respect I seek in this world?
And yet, and yet oh the things this body has done.
How many pounds of food have these hands planted and harvested and washed and sorted and packed? How many leaves and cheeks and hairs and streams and petals have these fingertips caressed? How many garden and forest and urban miles have these legs carried me?
I am grateful for my body. This body that has helped me reach for my dreams and yet kept me firmly rooted in the earth. This body that says strive and then says rest. This body that reminds this brain that there are boundaries and limitations that must be honored. Reminds that we are still flesh and bone and instinct and biological material and mostly still animal.
I am grateful for this body. For without this body, I am just ether and noise and useless thought. And with this body I am warm flesh pressed against another’s warm flesh. I am sun warmed and snow chilled and breeze tickled and gale thrashed and rain soaked and dust dried. I am the sweet tingling of soft dog whiskers upon each ridge and valley of my fingerprints and the warm comfort of their heavy head in my lap. I am the ecstasy of my lover’s lips pressing against an ear lobe and the hot breath whispering down the canal to make my drum beat and my heart beat and every nerve in my body beat. I am the sweat streaming down my face during the ascent above the world to thin air and steep ledges and the adrenaline coursing through me.
I am grateful for this body. For my mind’s inspirations comes from my body’s sensations.
My body is vigor and resilience when my mind is weak and resistant. As during the monotony of a long race or a day farming.
My body demands rest when my mind demands productivity. As during the circadian rhythms of life and the linear focus of capitalism.
My body craves touch when my mind runs to hide. As during a harmless quarrel with a loved one waiting to be resolved.
For what is the benefit of being human if in all our earned knowledge we override that of innate instinctual wisdom?
My body is wiser than my mind.