My Beautiful Body

I looked at my Body today. I looked at her with a different perspective than I have become accustomed to per media influences (too chunky, too flabby, too wrinkly, too uneven, too saggy, too rough, too callused, thin nails, bad cuticles, gray hair, not enough hair, too much hair there, short hair, thinning eyelashes, discolored skin, ad infinitum).  Today, I looked at my Body with gratitude and honor, with respect and admiration.  This Body has taken me places.  She has done so much for me and it seems the only thing I do for her is complain.  

Sigh….  When will I learn?

When I was three, this little Body sat on a tricycle and rode it out of our gated driveway down Cardinal Lane to Midkiff, then all the way down to Loop 250 (which was a Farmers Market road then)before she was found by a neighbor.  That’s about two and a half miles on a tricycle.  

This Body was knocked down by the metal gates to our house, with the gate crushing the ankles under it, pinning me down.  I remember this well (I was 4 then).  Yet she held steady.  No crushed ankles.  This Body was flown off a bucking mare, face first onto the street when I was seven, with gravel stuck to my face, but no broken bones.  The left leg of this Body withstood the weight of that same fully-grown mare, who knocked me down and stood on my thigh for 5 minutes as I lay screaming. She simply looked down at me with disdain. Again, a nice horse-shoe shaped bruise, but nothing broken. At this point, my Body consulted with my mind and convinced it to stay the hell away from that mare.

When I was 16, this Body survived a crash into a house one beautiful Sunday afternoon in March. There was no pulse and no heartbeat for a moment, according to witnesses, but then she remembered her manners and sprang back into Life, with a head injury, collapsed lung, cracked collar bone, one broken rib, lacerations, contusions, concussion,  etc.  Five days in a coma gave her time to gather her spark and zest before she ventured back onto the highway of Life.

And that was the easy stuff.

I then subjected my Body to years of poison; of alcohol and any other substances I could find…again and again and again, trying to fill that desperate hole inside my soul which would not be filled.  I did this for years. I placed my Body in many precarious situations… in drunken, black-out situations…some involving knives from offended parties, headlights facing me as I was in the wrong lane, desperate rides in a car full of strangers, just to get that next drink.  In the middle of this liquid suicide, my Body carried a child, a blessed child who did not deserve to live in this self-created hell.  So I found his mother, and on September 16, two days after I had given him life, my Body almost died inside as I handed him to his real mother, the one who could give him what he needed.  My Body survived that, but barely.  For over the next two years I tried in every way possible to kill this beautiful Body:  alcohol, drugs, pills, razor blades; constant emotional, physical and sexual assaults from another Lost Soul.  Yet, she stayed true.  She refused to give in to my demands, because she knew better.  She knew there was still so much to do, so many more things to accomplish.  

My Body wanted to give me those gifts I had so long dreamed of…children, adventures, freedom from Self.

 

Eventually she gave me those glorious children; basking in the indescribable joys of Life within.  She held them and protected them from me, even as I took that which was not good for me.  She gave them Life and was overjoyed in the blessings of nursing them.  My Body exalted in the Miracle of Womanhood.

My Body knows.  My Body has separated herself from my mind, which was so often my downfall.  Consuming foods which were not good for me, I reached a point where the weight was painful and I had to do something to heal my poor Body.  I am grateful this recognition happened at thirty pounds, rather than more.  So many people seem to ignore their Body’s cry for help.

She has so often given in to my demands of fitness, despite physical issues which limit her.  My fallen barefoot feet have pounded the pavement, crying out in pain, yet she continued. My body enjoys the Life brought by yoga, a mindful existence with mind and spirit.  A blissful harmony which doesn’t violate, yet nurtures, instead.

Recently, my Body held another Life.  Yet she knew something was wrong as the connection between mother and child was almost completely silent.  My Body once again had to suffer the pain of giving up a life, yet this time before his truly began, as she screamed in anguish in the loss her Last Child.  She mourned immeasurably, though this time with her children, and the bond between the two children and herself became even stronger.

 

I can only hope my Body will endure much more as I work to change my treatment of her.  I intend to begin honoring her, for all she done for me and all she has given me.

 

I love my beautiful Body.