I described my body in terms of my illness. My body was only chronic muscle and joint pain. It was 10-plus pain and exhausted. This was when I was bedridden, desperate and my mind was telling me, This is it. This is your life.
A few months prior, I had completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training course. I was in the best shape of my life. I started practicing yoga in advanced classes where all the students were teachers and I felt like I was in a beginners class. I’ve always been terrified of inversions–handstands, headstands, forearm stands–but was learning that I was strong enough to hold my own weight and do so upside down. I was finally learning to trust my body, to have confidence in it.
And then I was ill and texting Steve, Will I ever get better? He said, Yes. I said, Are you sure? He said, Yes. I chose to believe him rather than my own mind because my mind was influenced by pain.
Yesterday I went to a beginners yoga class and did the entire class without a break. I’ve lost a lot of arm strength–and a lot of my physical strength, actually–but I can hold poses without being completely wiped out. This week my friend emailed me and asked how I got better and I replied, A good amount of sleep, diet, and stress management. My reply was not the truest answer to the question. To answer the question truthfully, I would need a lot of time and space.
To answer the question, I would need to go to the page. When I’m writing, I find answers to questions that I didn’t even know I was asking. In my life, I’m constantly searching. It makes sense that I approach writing in the same way.
In Sheila Heti’s How Should A Person Be?, a character asks the narrator how her play is going and she can’t really answer the question. She says, “Of course, I did not know how to say any of this, or how to tell anyone any of this. I also didn’t know why I would tell it, or what telling it might mean, or who I could tell it to.”
I’m in the middle of reading How Should A Person Be? and Yes, Yes Cherries.
This week I enjoyed an essay by Aisha Sabatini Sloan over at Guernica and The Rumpus Interview with Scout Niblett. I’m a little obsessed with her music.
Are you looking for writing advice? Here are words of wisdom from Sarah Manguso, Jillian Lauren, and Roxane Gay and Anne Theriault.
Will you be in Los Angeles next Saturday? Michelle Tea will be participating in my reading series. We’re celebrating Mermaid in Chelsea Creek. Hope to see you there!
