Tag Archives: bodyluv

reconnoitering with the body’s old injuries

There were lots of friends in my dreams last night, but I don’t remember anything else. I have things to think about: my cup of water with lemon, a candle, and the typewriter that I’ve covered my eyes from being able to see — my chiropractor gave me a hard time about my ergonomic setup, and now here I am typing away at a kitchen table. So I lower the monitor, type with just my hands illuminated, and look straight ahead, hoping that I’m striking the right keys. Trust that old learning, the typing lessons you got when you were 12 years old, or something close — and trust that you won’t lift the screen in twenty minutes and find only gibberish.

Today my body is better. What a thing to be able to say. There are places that are sore still, inflamed, along my spine, in my knee, in my ribs, after years of being out of alignment and now adjusted, corrected. But my body is better. Yesterday I went to see a structural bodyworker, who talked with me a little bit about what is going on for me — the spasm I had two years ago, old injuries that might be manifesting now, the sort of trauma I might hold in my body — before starting to work on my body.

I explained that most of my pain was on the right side of my body. He’s been a long time in this work — almost 30 years — and had some ideas about what might be going on even before we got on his adjusting table. He worked with his hands, feeling along my spine for places that are out of alignment and then making the adjustments by hand, too, using a table that drops out from underneath me when he pushes down for the adjustments. Mostly, it didn’t feel like anything was happening. I heard the loud ring of the table, felt him pressing on my back, but most of the adjustments were slight and small, I think — gentle corrections that will help energy and blood flow more smoothly through the contours inside me.

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good morning to this skin and these muscles

(I am not a fast runner)

Outside, the city is still quiet at this pre-five-o’clock hour. The wind haggles all the trees, tossing them around, telling them dangerous stories. Yesterday when my sweetheart and I were out for a mid-morning run, we looked at the bruised-cloud sky and said, doesn’t it seem like rain? But, of course, it’s California — we all know it doesn’t rain in springtime. Oh, wait. Surprise.

~~ ~~ ~~
What to do with this knowledge
that our living is not guaranteed?

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Poem for a Friday – “if it’s not a secret”

My hands are covered with dirt, and my laptop is dusted with flour. These are good signs, I think.

A poem I love for this second Friday of WriOursWhoMo. Consider using that last line as a prompt…

Bodyweight
-Matthew Schwartz

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