Five Years a Writer

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...