The Body that Knows, Loves, and Sees Beyond Itself

Prompt: What does it mean to live in an unruly body?

I am so inspired by author Roxane Gay and her collaboration with Medium, and their creation of an anthology of stories about unruly bodies. Twenty pieces written by twenty exceptionally talented writers touch on topics like aging, abuse, self-discovery, ancestry, and more. I reveled in their honesty, insight, and struggle. From it, I was compelled to discover my own view of my body because it is just that, unruly, and the chaos exists not just in my muscles, skin, and bones, but in my perspective too.

Sometimes, I think I know my body.

I used to avoid mirrors. I would put on a robe or a loose shirt as soon as I was out of the shower, because something about my aureoles, something about the dense foliage between my legs, seemed ugly and strange. I felt uncomfortable to see myself in my natural form because it meant a lot of things; I’d see my unexplored sexuality, the rough ripples of eczema and acne, the parts people praised me for that I am, to this day, afraid to lose.

I still know the scars and the callouses, I understand they are a part of our aging bodies, they cannot be helped. They are signs of living.

But it takes great mental leaps to see how beautiful and powerful they are. They are signs of reckless abandonment, of questionable beautification attempts, physical improvement, and I am slowly accepting more of it. Dives off of docks, over-tweezed eyebrows, over-buzzed hair, soccer every day for 4 seasons, these are all elements of my life lived and that is something to look at and know.

So, you’d think that would be the greatest accomplishment, to look at my body when before I couldn’t. But those blemishes don’t all ignite nostalgia. I grow dismayed, because despite the history of living, it doesn’t change the cellulite and swollen toes better left hidden. It is as though now with new eyes, looking longer than before, my fears are confirmed. There are many ugly things about me. And where is the beauty in ugly? Unruliness is unsightly and scary.

It is the episodes that I cannot tell are my epilepsy come to pull me from consciousness, it is the click in my right ankle, the squishy give of my stomach, the scratching. I begin to fear, tread carefully, suck in, and tear because somehow knowing my body is not enough.

Sometimes, I think I love my body.

There are good things. My voice hums vaguely in tune, I run upon two feet, my size B breasts don’t give me back pain. I used to hate my frizzy curls and full lips. But now I am grateful for them. So, can my perspective change for the rest of me? Because I feel unsatisfied seeing my whole person, but only loving details. I, as a whole, am not someone to be loved fully, even by myself. I know I am much lonelier when I deny that for myself.

Despite the disdain, I continue to stand before the mirror in my natural unruly form because between shower and clothes, I do love the freedom of the nude. So, I stop avoiding for a moment. From such a quiet vulnerable place I suppose I can love the scars, the hair, the degradation that comes with time. It tells me I can’t depend on my Mother’s genes passed along to my small waist. That is not meant to last. All of this physical form is meant to change.

Then there is the other, the external validation. At 28, I have only been seen by one, in my natural unruly form. That still scares me a little. I might love myself more dearly, but rejection is still heavy to withstand. The question of my body invoking desire or dislike, how you may not want to caress me, you’ll then feel every scar. I want to give, but still afraid I’m not good enough to do so, and simultaneously, receive. I am restless and left to wonder…what limits exist with this kind of love.

Sometimes, I think I am beyond my body.

It is just muscles and bones, and a few other vital things. I like the idea of transcending the itch, disregarding what any clothing suggests, welcoming the heat that moves through my foliage, for my vagina gets real hot, and not always the sexy kind.

But that unruliness, there is no question about it. It demands my attention.

I still tread delicately through the talk of the unruly body. I can’t complain too much, because I am thin so what do I have to complain about? So, I can stay quiet. And I do. I let my insecurities warp in the deep cavern of my stomach, knowing full well if I admit an insecurity, I would be called out for my ignorance. It festers into a cry of unworthiness. It festers into an unhealthy relationship to food, and guilt for my body, how I can move smoothly through this society. I should be grateful for it.

So, it is hard to transcend. Especially when you feel it all, and we live on this earth and feel the passing of time so deeply, by our physical form. It changes without our permission, and makes it hard to trust that it will sustain us. Certainly with illness, injury, passing age, we know our bodies can’t always be relied upon. But even at our healthiest, something greater than the body is necessary. Intuition, spirit, calling, what led me to practice design, to write, encouraging movement through insecurity. The greater amazingly exists within the muscles and bones that I strive to know and love.

Even with this recognition, I don’t transcend very well. My spiritual stance is rocky, and gives way to the cruel voice too often. It is made all the more difficult because spiritual awakenings don’t come in strong proclamations like the cruel voice does. Nothing so loud.

Instead, they are passages from my Mom’s journal, opened to a page I had read last year then forgotten, the dusted words the perfect antidote. They are random phone calls from friends sending love, not knowing the previous night held a string of panic attacks. They are periods of peace that seem to envelope me as I trip through the dark.

It’s in those moments that I see, my unruly body is just an entity to support my greater conceptions and appreciations. I just wish these awakenings weren’t so brief. It’s difficult to remember and feel strong when they are so brief.

. . .

You can see I wane back and forth between confidence and insecurity like a broken metronome. One that still moves, but gets stuck in one perspective for an uncontrollable time. One perspective remains constant though; my body is unruly. Whether by my own decisions, societal influences, sheer existence on this earth, it will remain something of an uncontrollable vessel, like time, who won’t stop for me to grasp peace permanently.

But unruly is beautiful, too. I will not give homage to the unruliness, because it is not the entirety of me, nor do I want to become apathetic to chaos, but I will try my best to respect it and love it as it is. It is my vessel that I’ve been given to live life, and I want to explore it as intentionally as possible. Also, with it’s help I can enjoy cheeseburgers. And dance. And form creative callings with my hands. My unruly hands.

.Kels.