welcome, words. sometimes when they start bubbling inside of me before i even sit, i know it's going to be good.
often these days i have been lucky enough to enter a space of flow with relative ease, just sitting down with the work and the work curling fingers towards me, tangling me inside, tangling and tangling until i realise some invisible knot has been loosened, i know something new of the world, of my work, of my body-mind and of the words.
for some weeks now my nose has been bleeding. nothing heavy, just little clots of blood when i pick at it, sometimes a drop of wet red on my fingertip. it must be the dryness, cracking the landscape of my skin, leaving me khurdura on my elbows, the backs of my arms, my outer thighs and hips. today the soft chamber at the beginning of my throat is feeling tender, each swallow tasting sickly, breath becoming sticky. i work hard at myself when i can, drinking adrak chai slowly, rubbing coconut oil with lemongrass essence all over my freshly-bathed outsides, dabbing some oil in my nostrils so i stop wiping dried blood on my sheets.
as far as i can figure the mountain pose from my yoga videos, it is about standing straight, straight, feet hip length apart but firmly rooted, thighs reaching upward gently, hands open at your side, shoulders low but pulled back like little wings spreading, head facing forward, so sturdy atop this geometry. it is mostly like standing, except doing it with grace, a grace the human body tends to forget when the mind is beeping and scrolling and marching.
mostly these days i am feeling like a body. a body aching or glad, dancing freer than ever before on certain bluish nights. when i talk or play or do it is mostly in relation to everybody around me: i am the self that fits like a jigsaw here, flowing with ease between my mama's arms and the other rooms, making my grandparents laugh and hold my hand with their calloused palms, teasing my sister and pa, giggling helplessly with Susan Didi's beautiful baby boy. sometimes i get on the phone with a friend and then i have to remember who i am, how my hours are passing, and that feels hard, and so i often don't do it.
and the rest? all work. when i can't do it my body mopes, i watch tv and eat late lunch with my sister, i bathe for an hour with my tea in the bathroom, and prepare myself for when the work comes. i must fulfill obligations and also do homework, submit workshop letters, be a good student. i'm being a good student of my self, finally a good student of derrida, always a good student of my mama's stories. the theory i read feels like jibberish when i'm tired, but when i'm open and ready it pours over me like something sacred, allows me new meanings, gives me joy like a large object strangely weightless and invisible in my arms. and then the way paint glides on paper, releases pigment into water, settles new shadows into the world. and then the words i can make, tak tak tak, just one upon the next. it makes me smile like a child when somebody passes the room.