Well, ladies
I want to recommend something but I have to tell you how I got there and it is not a short walk.
I was sitting on a bench outside the coffee shop on Wednesday. I had not left the house since Saturday. Five days. I had called it restorative on Sunday, necessary by Monday, and by Tuesday I had stopped naming it because naming it would mean admitting I was hiding.
A woman walked by. Mid-twenties. She was wearing a dress that was just a dress, nothing special, and she was walking like the street belonged to her. Not strutting. Just moving through the world like it had not occurred to her that the world might not want her in it.
I watched her for maybe four seconds and something landed in my chest that I have been trying to describe for three days.
It was not envy. Envy is wanting what someone has. This was not that. I do not want to be twenty-six. I do not want that dress. I do not want her walk or her waist or her oblivious ease with her own body.
What I felt was grief. Not for her. For the version of me that used to walk like that and did not know she was doing it. The version that wore a dress and did not check the mirror twice. The version whose body was just a thing she lived in, not a thing she managed. ☕
I sat on that bench for a long time.
Clare would not sit on a bench for a long time. Clare would stand up and do something actionable within ninety seconds. I am not Clare. I sat there and I let it be heavy because I think some things are supposed to be heavy and rushing past them is just another way of hiding, which I had already done enough of that week. 😌
I went home and I stood in my bathroom and I looked at my hands. I do not know why my hands. Maybe because Dani's mirror thing felt too big and my hands felt like a safe place to start.
They are good hands. They are older than they used to be. There are lines that were not there five years ago and a spot near my left thumb that showed up this winter. But they work. They type fast. They hold a coffee cup every morning and a book every night and they rubbed my stepson's shoulder last week when he was upset and he leaned into it instead of pulling away.
I said it out loud. "My hands are good."
It felt ridiculous. I said it anyway. And something in my chest loosened about half a turn. Not fixed. Loosened.
There is a documentary I watched that night about a Japanese ceramicist, an old woman who has been making the same bowls for sixty years. She holds the clay the way I imagine she has always held it, and her hands are beautiful not because they are young but because they know exactly what they are doing. I cannot remember where I found it. It was on one of the streaming platforms and I was not looking for it, it just appeared. Watch it if you find it. You will know the one. 🤍
Here is today. Pick one part of your body that still works the way you need it to. Not the part you are managing. Not the part that changed. The part that shows up.
Say it out loud. "My legs are good." "My back is good." "My hands are good." Whatever is true.
It will feel stupid. Say it anyway. ✨
That is the whole thing. Grief does not need a solution. But the body carrying the grief could use a kind word from the person living in it.
