Good morning, Sweet Body

October 6^th and a half.

I was so sick yesterday. I was in pain all day. I got depressed – my whole body hurt.

My kids were also sick – my daughter has an intense phobia of vomit and some kid did just that in school today. She didn’t want to go back today. My son also was really wanting face time – his snotty beautiful I’m going to make you so much sicker face…

I could not bear the mat. I felt my body would break – I kept telling myself, if I got onto it, it would let me listen better to my body but I didn't want to listen.

I suppose, the fact is, I didn’t want to listen to my body. I didn’t want to hear what it had to say. Furthermore, I was super annoyed at it for screwing up my day.

By the end of the day it was all I could do to lie in my bed in corpse pose – slightly wishing I was a corpse – and breathe.

It’s not a small thing. Breathing. It’s easy to forget – and it’s easy to underestimate.

When I was little I learned to meditate with my father. If I wanted to be in the room with him I had to do what he was doing. He would sit in front of a candle and chant. Om mani padri om. Om is the jewel in the lotus of the heart. Om.

I hated it. I was squirmy and fidgety and bored. Far better to go back into the other room and search for Kenny Rogers on the radio.

Years later, when it came to prenatal breathing classes I refused. I did, in fact, refuse and speaking of meditation until after my kids were born. I was firmly routed in the idea that I would take drugs and that the process would be… well, whatever it was.

But when the contractions started, the training came back all on its own. My oldest friend, who had carefully studied meditation for months before her own birth – and had found it marginally helpful – watched me in disbelief. “How do you know that – that’s everything I learned.”

The thing about practice is that it does support you – when you need it. When you learn things they become part of you – inside – part of your being.

Emily Dickenson’s punctuation was another thing I learned like that.

The teacher says, good morning sweet body – in her beautiful Australian accent…

Good morning, sweet body.