Shirtless days

Today I ran in just my jog bra for the first time since I last gave birth.
It was warm out
but not too warm;
I just wanted to feel my skin meet the sun.

The extra skin on my belly, in its chicken-skin ways,
twisted with each step like a wet rag being rung.
Such are the signs of having spent 75 weeks of my life
as the first home of two humans.

My right knee wanted to tell me how I'd better not hike
   with my 3-year-old strapped to my back anymore.
I told it I would listen tenderly to its opinions while we ran.

There is something pure
and forgiving
and loving in locomotion.
So when the woman walking the short dog
shot me disparaging, star-thistled looks
I tossed them over my shoulder
and left them in my wake.
(Oh, the rancor we feel towards the woman who decides to fully inhabit her body)

There are parts of me that don't work as well anymore
and parts of me that work better.
My heart for one,
is a thick and brilliantly calloused organ
with its vacancy sign always lit a cherry red in welcome.
And my quadriceps continually beg me to let them stretch out long and animal-like
on never-ending roads.
They convince me I am seven again,
with pig tails streaming behind my head.

So I push this earnest body into the air,
like a bow bent to spring the arrow,
and enjoy every bit
of every step
of my no-longer-young torso
shining in the sun.

Do I Own My Life, Or Does It Own Me?

Stuff. 

For the past six months I've been viewing myself and my family through the microscope of the things we "own".

We have sorted, purged, had garage sales, made countless deliveries to the Free Store, craigslisted, and finally, boxed. So many boxes.


It is said that there is a fine line between owning things and your things owning you. When filling up a 26-foot moving truck, this aphorism becomes quite poignant.

Moving from a place and people where we enjoyed safe harbor for the last seven years-- albeit often begrudgingly on my part-- and dealing with all our stuff feels like ricocheting around in a tornado of our own making. There is no time to slow down, I'm just trying to find a handhold in the spinning chunks of air.

"I can see the finish line," my mother-in-law kept saying. Her optimism kept me scrubbing, painting, and packing long after I would have liked to fall on the floor in a puddle of what might formerly be known as "me." I couldn't see that finish line, but she was smart enough to know I'd believe it was there if she said it was there.

So here we are now, two weeks into our new normal. We're still dealing with boxes, but we've also swum in creeks, lakes, and pools nearly every day, gone hiking, tried stand-up paddle boarding, had more friends visit in one week than we've had in three years, and watched free outdoor music concerts with big, silly gratitude grins on our faces.

It is an act of courage and faith in the Universe to let go of your stuff. It's saying, "I trust you. If I ever really need any of this again, I trust it will be provided."

So too with our life choices. When we stand on that cliff of known solid ground, looking out at some dream we have-- taking the leap into parenthood, applying for a new job, finally deciding to speak our truth-- and we place that first foot out into that deep, cavernous air, we are saying, "Universe, I trust you." But maybe more importantly we are saying, "I trust myself. Come what may, I trust myself."