It’s a thought that plagues me in moments of stillness: moments that capture me, like
great heaving breaths taken
in an instant as
head breaks water’s surface,
and for a shining, crystalline moment
I remember what it is to breathe.
Or maybe this isn’t an experience you have.
But my life is often an exercise in full-body immersion as I sink into mind and computer and achieve a state that’s nearly
dissociated
from my body.
And the sudden-ness of breaking free startles me, in the moments when I find myself back inside my body —
often with a thump.
This is when it hits me over the head how the hours have slipped by and I fear that I haven’t really been living. That I have instead been so completely wrapped up inside my mind that I’ve forgotten what it means to have a body. Forgotten what it means to sit in my body, to sit with my body, to
And maybe if I weren’t me this wouldn’t be so much of a problem. Maybe I would relish the hours spent consumed by other, the moments when self falls so entirely free and I become one with machine.
Or as near to such a thing as can be.
But I find that art requires presence
That I cannot speak without tasting the texture of my tongue.
That I cannot see without knowing the slippery slide of eyelids upon eyes.
That I cannot feel without the dancing rhythm of my heart, thudding away inside my chest.
That I cannot know what I am seeing/thinking to speak it without first knowing that this body in it’s infinite
wisdom and fragility
is here and now and right in this very moment with me.
And, so, I ask again: