Dear Diary, I woke up at 6:30 this morning from a dream that ended in a hug. It was a specific hug, one that I haven't felt in eight or nine years, but in my dream, it was exactly right, that hug. Its shape and texture, its solidity and scent. My body remembered precisely. It was a shock of both relief and recall, which means that my mind has mercifully allowed those sensations to fade from my conscious memory over time. Last night before bed I had been reading and was struck by a line about the soul whispering to the mind in dreams. I say it was merciful of my mind to forget the sensation of the hug, but sparking that memory in my body was also a mercy - perhaps given by my soul? How long will my body remember that hug? Will it keep reminding me once in awhile?
Dear Diary, Saturday I spent hours and hours at the mall just trying to find a pair of jeans that fit me right. I am tall and I have hips built to hold a cradle - but I am still stylish, by god. I searched and searched and fought to keep from seeing myself the way all those ill-fitting jeans wanted me to: not right! As if the problem was that I didn't fit the jeans, and not the other way around. As if it is form and not function that makes a body right.
Dear Diary, I remember feeling an absolute conviction that the experience of the body was so much more important than its appearance. I was younger then. Now I feel more like the people I was trying to convince, but I'm grateful to my younger self for her certainty. I borrow it. And I borrow from the relief of those I managed to sway. When I remember.
Dear Diary, I think about being a mother compulsively and all of the time. I am never ever unaware of my body, in this sense. I suspect, in fact, that it is my body itself that is so obsessed. I have that Joni Mitchell line in my head a lot. Y'know - I get that strong longing and I wanna settle and raise a child up with somebody. But it passes like the summer, I'm a wild seed again, let the wind carry me. It makes me wonder, if my body weren't so insistent, weren't so tick-tick-tick-tick! how would I live differently? Oh, the answers there may be to that question.
Dear Diary, Years ago I had names picked out for my future children. Now I don't.
Dear Diary, I've seen my friends' kids enact mannerisms or hold their bodies in the same ways I've seen their parents do and it makes me smile, huge. What a crazy amazing thing that we pass down more of our bodies than just genes.
Dear Diary, I have never in my life been so aware of my body as I have since joining a band (and that's saying something). Would that this were unnecessary; yes, I could write diatribes upon diatribes about how local reviews of live performances focus more intently on a woman's appearance than her talent. But every visual image is a message and to me, the message I give through my performance is kind of the point. Bodies are not empty, and women's bodies are read more frequently than any book, any blog, any billboard, any word. And so I have thought and rethought and rethought what my body can and ought to say. In the end, I tell myself it just says the same thing it did when I was 3: C'mon, let's jump!
Dear Diary, What is so special about a slow dance? How does the body understand that specific kind of proximity to another body? I knew when I wrote the lyrics to Slow Dance Slow that they had to evoke the physical sensation of slow dancing. Heart to heartbeat. Sing me a lullaby in my ear now. My hand in yours, your cheek on mine. It's a subtle unity, the slow dance. Almost like it recognizes the inescapable separateness between two bodies (the separateness that sex, on the other hand, tries to overcome) and creates a sacred kind of space that can be shared, anyway. Weight shifting together in time. Breath. Warmth. Hearts beating.
Dear Diary, It has been over a year and a half since I smoked a cigarette. I had a cancer scare and that was that. But I still feel my body wishing for the sensation of smoking - in my mouth, my chest. I think it's something to do with addressing the sensation of emptiness.
Dear Diary, The adrenaline rush alone to an abused body is a powerful, terrorizing thing. Years after the last time I was pushed, pinned, trapped or screamed at, I still have a severe startle response and am much quicker to anger (and fear) than I ever had been before. It's like my body still hasn't let itself relax all the way, like fight or flight is just under the surface, just in case. In my mind I used to return again and again to a vision of myself lying alone on the desert floor, staring up at a sky with a single raven far overhead and no one else around for miles and miles and miles. Just the empty warmth all around and the firm ground underneath me. That image brought moments of solace to my wracked body. If I had to experience that stuff, I'm so very grateful it wasn't as a child - even if it means I have to reckon with my part in dealing with it. But I do so wish I hadn't destroyed so much in the panicked attempts to protect myself. I'd give absolutely anything to have even one of those letters back.
Dear Diary, I am going on a four-day silent retreat this spring. Last spring I did one for just two days and at the end of those two days I could hear, not only the smallest of thoughts in my own mind, but my own heartbeat, and my own footsteps - from the inside - through the reverberating and creaking of my skeleton. Four days is a lot of silence. I wonder what I will hear this time. I wonder if I'll get my mental jukebox to shut off this time.
Dear Diary, I guess after everything, I trust my body more than either heart or mind to help me determine what is what. There is a different feeling in my body when I am being lied to or when I am lying to myself. When I am grieving versus when I am needing. When I am certain versus when I am afraid. The feeling in my body of being with someone good for me is very different from the feeling in my body when I am with someone who is not so good for me. It is so hopeful that I have finally learned to tune that in instead of out.
Dear Diary, Sitting in a desk in front of a computer all day is just not how the body wants to be.
Dear Diary, I should probably confess that I keep eating ice cream after I am full. Last night I tried ginger ice cream; it would have been better with ginger snaps. My doctor did tell me I needed to increase my daily dairy servings to avoid osteoporosis later. This is a funny age. I'm old enough to be told things like that and to be aware of my body aging, and yet young enough that it still feels odd to be thinking so long-term about my body.
Dear Diary, Much as I love language, occasionally I wish we could just communicate like animals do. (Most animals, I mean. Not my cat. He talks. A LOT.) It seems there is so much less room in the body for misunderstanding. Much less emptiness.
Dear Diary, Lush bath bombs are still my favorite.
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