It started with the removing of shoes, leaving fuzzy orange-brown socks underneath green sweats.
I forgot to change my bra; I hope she doesn’t mind.
Why would she mind, again? She’s my physical therapist. Add it to the realm of responsibilities I create like salt to the rim of a margarita glass.
I stood and sat. Bent forward and back. Side to side. A touch of the head, the shoulder. Calm quiet. A safe and comforting feeling that my body was talking again in time.
I laid down. More discovery of my body and what it had to say. Feet and hands. The crown of my head again.
She asked me to sit up and I met her with an apprehensive gaze, eye to eye with a sweet little skeleton. They waited to share with me what my body had shared with them.
Scar tissue from my c-section scar has adhered a bit to muscles and fibers, which is adhering to my uterus and causing a pull in my left side, causing hip pain and pain during sex. I nodded. That made sense.
Oh, but the mind-body connection. How human of me to forget how powerful that is. My body speaks loudly when she touches my scar. It cowers, reacts, retreats. She asked me to notice how my throat closes when her hands hover there. I swallowed through a throat that felt like a clenched fist.
The mind-body connection. Hands and feet. Skin and everything it holds.
The rest of the session was spent reconnecting with my body and being.
“No, no you’re trying too hard. Just be.”
“No, you’re thinking again, just be.”
“You haven’t missed anything.”
But haven’t I? I’ve missed so much.
Haven’t I?
Life, milestones, money, achievements. When she says it out loud, it feels right. I haven’t missed anything. I didn’t miss signs that he was in any distress. I didn’t miss signs of her cancer. Life happened and we — my body and I — co-created the response.
“Sense your hands and feet.”
Follow them back home into a body that knows and never stopped knowing.
It’s not about productivity, she explained. How much you get done in a day.
It’s about the state of being you are in when you do it. True healing takes depth, time. True healing happens in a state of rest. No doing, no trying. Just being.
With my hands over my eyes, I cried. No stuffing down and no running away with.
Stuck energy moving in and through.
My hands and feet.
I forgot all about not changing my bra.
Tai Chi: A curiosity to try Tai Chi is budding within. Slow, intentional movements, slowly reconnecting with my body after the slumber of all winter slumbers feels inviting.
Textures: With pottery, I’ve started looking at textures in nature and everyday household items that I could imprint on clay. Bubble wrap, lavender from the garden, straw. Life in 4D.
Life after death: Maybe it’s spurred by my podcast but I’ve been thinking a lot about how we’re supported here as humans and who we’re supported by. I believe our ancestors watch over us (amidst other beings) and lately I’ve been wondering what their lives may look and feel like. Kind of like Miguel’s awestruck face in Coco when he sees his ancestors on Día de Muertos and the incredible afterlife they live together. (We watch a lot of Disney). There’s a beauty here that I appreciate. A peace. A reminder of how life gives way to death and death gives way to life. The life-death-life cycle. A very spring vibe.
The ability, as humans, to quite literally change our minds.
My mom and her big, big heart. Her strength. Her ability to remind me of myself when I’m not connecting to my hands and feet.
To be a mother and every single thing, hard and easy, that comes with it.
That writing exists.
x, Dev
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