Common practice refers to any “I” with consistency, but there is no monument here, only these constant aberrations. A body may be well one moment, wounded the next, then ill. Same for soul, spirit, mind, and whatever else we try attaching to this ongoing flux.
Also common, at least after a certain point, to wonder each morning, how now? Check pulse, blood pressure, eyes. Are the dark circles back? I remember the years I could not look because I knew. How cold, this seeming indifference. I was angry at her, for being so much less than solid. And possibly more, too; more than I wanted to imagine. I wasn’t myself, we commonly say, looking back on moments like this. And yet, I never asked, who are you? I never asked, how is your name? or what form shall we take, next?
We move more gently now. I check the pressure, coaxing encouragement. C’mon, I whisper, while I wait. Don’t let up. The translation might be a little prayer, some invocation to this small, quaking of tentative flesh and fluctuating fluids, to hold. We are still emerging.
***
Inspired while reading John Donne’s opening meditation in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624).
Yes, it is a shock when your body does not obey you anymore.
“We are still emerging”, indeed. Easy to forget it’s a never-ending process, especially as the body, “small quaking of tentative flesh and fluctuating fluids”, changes our interactions with our world. Too often we accept that as a sign we’re done. Not so. Thanks again, Stacey!
Thank you for this, Kat.