De-alienating bodies

The National Health Service informs me that 7 out of 10 people experience lower back pain at some point in their lives. 7 out of 10. I had no idea it was that many. In my line of work, it's extended sitting-still-time that can exacerbate conditions like these. So here we are, the majority of academics, who would benefit from the occasional stretch, but the work environment is such that those who do attract a lot of attention. It's a Big Deal to deviate from the norm by standing up. We think it's the management, not the institutional structures, that are the "choice".

So I can understand why people might be unable to stretch in meetings, and I don't want this post to be read as a criticism of the management strategies of people who can't negotiate their work environment in this way. For a really long time I felt awful and awkward standing. And obviously, lots of people can't stand up. The issue isn't the standing up itself, but rather inhabiting bodies in a different way, and using my body differently just happened to be how it happened for me.

I found
I like it.

I'm so used to thinking I mustn't be seen, mustn't be in the way, mustn't take up space, mustn't be a size 12, mustn't be needy, mustn't make my needs obvious, mustn't get angry, mustn't have a body that does messy feminine things, mustn't, mustn't, mustn't.

Stand up straight, and you can breathe longer, deeper breaths -- inhale the fire of your belly and push it into words -- and when you're breathing like that, you can talk a lot louder with virtually no effort. When you breathe like that you can feel the breath in your fingers, in the space between your cartilage, in your words, in your toes that are like roots

sucking up more
more
more
I'm still hungry
for all these words.

Projection. That's what it's called: when we get all the voice in our bodies and make words.

These questions don't just come from my mouth anymore, they come right out of the soles of my feet, out of the roots of my hair. It's not my mouth talking now, it's my whole body.

(When you're wrong, be wrong with conviction (but open to the new). When you're right, be right with hunger for more knowledge. Be hungry for more with your whole body.)

Turns out I like being louder. Well, being loud enough, anyway. That's all part of these words coming out of my belly, which is all full of voice.

I take up space in the world. This space, here, where I'm standing. This is the space I take up in the world. This is mine, just like these words are mine. They are both created by me.

I am my own method of production. De-alienated. This is the space I take up in the world. I didn't always know that.

--IP

[Cross-posted at Modus Dopens]