By Chris
One of My Favorite Words Is “Embody”
I used to be my body.
I inhabited it fully is what I want to say but that's not right— it was not a vessel that some essential “me” occupied and filled; there was no separation, no distinction between thoughts, sensations, and physical form.
No inner and outer.
My thoughts flowed most freely when my body was in motion. My deepest passions were felt— not abstract emotions, but physical experiences: love as touch and sex; joy as movement and play; scent as memory and mood; sound as thought in music— poetic and emotional and atmospheric and philosophical and spiritual and playful— not to mention connection: communication with people, communion with nature; taste as pure indulgence. The seat of my knowledge was in my gut my fingertips the breath of my lungs.
I was in the world and a part of the world. I fit. I belonged. One animal among many.
I was I and I was free.
Now, though— time has happened, age has happened, not all at once, I'm sure it must have been gradual, I didn't even know it was happening, only just realizing, slowly coming to awareness, suddenly able to articulate, something has changed.
Now I feel captive.
I am something apart; contained within this thing I no longer know except as an inconvenience, a decrepit machine that cuts me off from life.
Even as my mind has grown, my essence matured, my confidence, capabilities, comprehension increased, my ability to partake has dwindled.
Somewhere along the way I lost my body.
Too much indulgence and now I'm diabetic; food has become sustenance instead of pleasure. Too much movement and a knee surgery. Obesity. My kids say Come, let us play but I always say Not today; I'm too big, too slow, I hurt, I'll get hurt, not anymore, you do it without me. My son revels in the pure joy of running; something for which I yearn that I'll never know again. I've lost my sense of smell, so no more mood or memory. The doctor lists my conditions on and on, prescribes my medications endlessly.
This thing that used to be me has become an obstacle rather than an expression.
Science says my thoughts are physical processes, chemistry and electricity, that I am nothing without my sensations and perceptions, yet in the background, when I wasn't paying attention, my self-concept morphed regardless, and now I imagine myself as a collection of formless ideas floating in a void trapped inside this rusty vehicle, forever reaching for— and falling short of— true connection.
I have become abstract.