My body the book

My body is like a book I've had around so long it’s part of my personal furniture.

I've read this book over and over, for many years, in different cities, in different homes...it seems to be just always there, within my reach, giving me ease, possibly; comfort, maybe; familiarity, definitely – and, with luck, support. It's not always the perfect book for the moment in which I find myself, but it is, actually, the only book that’s mine to own.

My body is like a book I know so well the pages virtually turn themselves. I have a sense of how the story unfolds from start to end, yet I continue to reach for the book when I want, precisely, that well known, thoroughly understood, experience. I expect to get what is already familiar to me.

And yet, my body is like a book that, sometimes, surprises me with what I discover in its pages. I thought I’d known it completely. But then a turn of the page reveals an unexpected (forgotten?) image. Pearls of wisdom hang in phrases differently; I’ve never read them quite this way, never quite that way. A part of the story is new again to me, even after all this time. Look, it tells me: Those boxes? You can lift them! That distance? You can walk it! That challenge? You can face it!

Sure, my body shows its age, wears the journey it's been through. My wanting cannot diminish the marks, the pounds, the proof of life it carries. Together, they map my many choices over time.

My body does its job: Feet take me places. Spine holds me strong. Head and heart connect me whole. My flesh clothed – or naked as when new-born – is my front to the worlds I inhabit.

My body.

Like that book on the shelf, its promise gets me through the day. Even when there's a shift in the story’s ending today or tomorrow or the next day (am I the writer of this story?), I know I can rely on the rhythm of the story itself to get me through: It’s the only one I know, the only one I have.

My body?

I am its title, its protagonist.

I will not diminish it, deny it, ignore it.

I will inhabit it, respect it, be open to the life I have through it.

I will embrace the map it is drawing: My body is mine. My body is me.

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I offer this piece in honour of our bodies/ourselves, no matter our shape or size.

Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash