The Isolation Journals - Day 21

Hi there.  How are you today?  I don't mean that superficially.  I hate small talk.  Take a minute for a self-inventory and get back to me.

I made crackers yesterday with my sourdough starter discard.  I felt like an actual wizard. 

Today's prompt comes from writer Ruthie Lindsey.

Prompt:  Take a few deep breaths. Ground yourself in your body. Bring your attention to your sternum and your hands. Your legs and feet. Do you feel electricity? If so, where? Do you feel warmth or coolness? How is your heart? If you’re experiencing an emotion, where does it show up in the body? What color, what shape does it take? 

Enter into your body as much as you can and then write about the experience—what you noticed, what you encountered, what you learned.

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Inhabiting a body is a curious thing.  A sack of flesh and blood and bones that we are forced to drag around when we want to move our brains and eyes.  That's one view.  Another is the wonder of noticing every distinct and sometimes contradictory sensation the body can hold at once.  

The rumble in my stomach and the tension in my neck don't detract from the singular delight of a warm kitty purring on my feet as I sit upright in bed to write this morning.  My thirst doesn't absorb the pleasure of my favorite mechanical pencil gliding across a blank page.

I have a daily yoga practice (which is an insufferable-sounding thing to say).  It is non-negotiable.  No matter how sick or exhausted or busy, I have taken at least five minutes to move and breathe and be in my body.  It's so easy for us, women especially, to resent our bodies for what they don't look like or can't do, or to forget them altogether in the crush of getting things done and taking care of others.  

Give yourself at least five minutes (much more if you can manage!) to remember that you are a whole person inhabiting a body.  It is never time wasted, it is a gift for your whole self.