Sometimes I write before breakfast…

Somedays I write before breakfast. Today is that day. Just to get something out. Move it. Shift it. Empty. Before putting anything at all back in.

Today is the day. This morning I hurt. All over. It doesn’t feel worrying, more a dull, constant ache greeting me into Sunday morning. A sign that there is tiredness in me, that something is asking for attention. Somewhere in me wants noticing. And I’ll give it in a second. In the dance. But first, to write.

What is it to write? What does it do to the chemistry of us? The mood? It changes the ambiance perhaps? Brings life into more brilliant focus? Shifts and settles some of the uncertainty twisting around inside? I think it might just do all of that. It might just align me. It might just get close enough to the pain to dissolve it. Sometimes it does that.

Is writing magic? One could argue. The debate exists. There is no doubt it changes the very heart of us and that words can heal or harm, in equal doses. Words are powerful, vehicles for everything and anything, transporting, restoring, resisting. They stand up on their own, calling out with whispers and shouts and paragraphs and rhymes and people can’t help but be moved one way or the other.

My pain. It comes in waves. Right behind the heart. It’s like it doesn’t want me to forget. That it’s there. That there is something worth seeing. That there is a requirement of attention and it is not silenced by ignorance. I feel you pain of mine. What exactly is it that you want?

Pain. A call for help? The body’s way of speaking up? Yes and no. It is and always will be sensation, only that, aside from the concepts we place upon it. And sensation at it’s essence requires sensing, following, curiousity. It wants to be known and seen, just like the rest of you and the rest of the planet. It wants understanding, a connection deeper than most, love even. Do I understand you pain? Perhaps not quite yet. I’ll admit it. I’m not sure I’m there.

Do you scare me? Sometimes. Sometimes I feel so old. Decrepit. Falling to pieces. Like you are my edges fraying and there is no seamstress with the skill to draw you gently back to your old new self. Do you frustrate me. Yes, yes you do. I want to be that girl again. That girl who won every race. The girl who flew over soccer fields. I want that freedom again. I miss it sometimes. I know, I think I know, that you are not me. But that worries me a little. That you have moved in, and that like a terrible tenant, it is going to take force and strength to move you, both of which feel a bit lacking at the moment.

I know you want to teach me. You already have. You’re not the most fun teacher I’ve ever had, like that chemistry teacher who would dance and sing. You’re definitely not that. With you, my armour breaks down without my permission and surrender looms and I hate surrender. Is it the only way through? I’m starting to think so. Can I trust you? I sure as hell hope so. Is there a choice?

Through your tutaledge I have traversed my timeline, sobbing, raging, overcome by waves of stuff. How much can the human body carry? Generations of junk passed down the genetic line? Outdated and underused but rising up to deter my happiest life at the perfect timing. The moment of release might just be worth the pain, lightness rising up in me, creating effervescence in my cells. Life in my cells. I want more of that. Way more.

Through pain do I find pleasure? I wonder. Is it possible to tease these two apart? Or are they one and the same? Both sensation, one judged as bad, one judged as oh-so-good. Easy to error on the side of pleasure if pain can be avoided. But what if. What if it can’t?

What if it finds you in the night and you wake up aching? What then?

It’s a good question. I wonder if I have an answer. Maybe it’s in here somewhere. I know what I do when it shows up, like an unwanted guest who you’re too polite to turn away. I breath, shallow at first, then more deeply. And sometimes tears come, and sometimes nothing. I breathe right into it, like waves on a distant shore. I want to know this place, what it’s made of, where it’s existence began. Sometimes the answers come, other times not. I write at times, like now. At others I dance, moving into the sensation and kneading it like warm dough, like it is my partner and I am moving it gracefully and lovingly around the floor all while asking for a little more and a little more.

Because in the end, my pain does not limit me. It expands me. Forces me into questioning. Opens me up to more. It expands me into more compassion, understanding, love, tolerance. It shares with me the deep sorrow that is waking up with pain every single day and living it, walking it through your life and perhaps, maybe even releasing it. It give me the breadth and depth to get it, to understand and to share in an experience and the faith that we will move beyond it into something a little or a lot more comfortable. I dream of that for myself, for everyone. I want it. And it keeps me growing, evolving, it pushes my boundaries of what I knew to be possible.

I can see the gift. And it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck and I don’t want it to just go away. It doesn’t mean I don’t throw myself epic pity parties. Plenty of that. It just means that after I have exhausted all those choices for the hundredth time, I remember the way through is not anywhere near there. And I change course. Because the way through starts when I stop. Stop. And breathe. And listen. And then do what my body says. Move, write, dance, cry, reach out. It knows.

Love and more love,

Alexa