Today, I climb a small step ladder to gather chokecherry, pulling branches towards myself, pulling myself up onto the fence to get even higher to the fruit nearly out of reach. I finger the stems to release the ripe berries into the stainless steel bowl my toddler was wearing as a hat not an hour before. I repeat beneath the elder bush, looking skyward in the hot sunlight of the early afternoon.
I duck beneath the black walnut tree and pick from the ground, green orbs, checking for rot, walking in circles as more allow me to see them in the verdant grass. A game of I Spy. I sit on the front stoop, said toddler with a home-made popsicle, and breaking the outer husk against the concrete I’m staining my hands with the floral and resinous flesh of its insides. “It smells so good”, and the little one leans in with his nose, “smell good”, pine, citrus, and floral notes spinning around our faces.
I’ve been reading these delicious and hooking fantasy books and it leaves me, not craving for a fairy lover (though hello and thank you mirror neurons) or to live in a different world, but to live more fully in my body in this world. I stretch my body out on a quilt in the backyard and when I can no longer move because my toddler has deemed the stretching “done”, I sit quietly with my eyes closed.
How do I let myself hold me? How do I carry myself through the day?
I slowly shift my body until it feels right, alert and relaxed, a natural curve to the spine, a golden thread gently pulling my crown towards the sun. The breeze touches me across my head and shoulders. The sun kisses me just the same. A sweet ache, to just be.
I dance a lived fantasy this afternoon during toddler nap-time. I spin, step, slide, and soothe an ache through movement. The fantasy books I’ve been reading fuel my lust to fill full. I move with supple limbs that drag through the air around me. I crave my own body in motion.
A sense of freedom is here in my dancing. I am free to move however I wish and to love every moment. I won’t waste any energy judging this body or the shape that it makes as I glide. I just move to the next incarnation. And the next. And so on until I am down on the floor rolling back and forth feeling my body against the floor, dropping into the earth, letting it hold me.
I dance love and lust, temptation and desire, though it’s so subtle I don’t think it could be seen. Maybe it could be felt. It’s a glimmering, a glow and flow, until I feel complete.
Today, I live and dance a fantasy, transforming what fantasy can mean through the alchemy of embodiment.
Ephemeral Movement 