Lazy Sunday: Photo by Noelle
I run my finger along the skin of my thigh. It is surprisingly smooth and soft. Knees bent the skin pulls taut and I can see the shape of the bones. I lay my hand flat over one knee and imagine I can feel the marrow alive and thriving at its center. These are my pieces. Pulled out of a toy chest and assembled into this form, specifically for this ride. I breathe in my good fortune, relishing the sound as the lungs fill with an expansiveness I had but all forgotten.
I remain still, my heart beating steady as spring rain – my breath slows to hear it. Each chamber opens the door to my life blood, as the grandest of hosts in a burgundy castle. “All are welcome here!” they call out and my blood flows in as giddy guests. The veins in my arms talk of banquet tables and vast dance floors where all life is on display. Fat oxygen molecules swinging as if ballerinas in and out of capillary beds hum my existence into life. I am humbled by the grace of single blue line mapping the tale of me.
The moment is brief as my senses remain tied to the dark chocolate I’d eaten a few moments ago. More bitter than sweet and rich as gold across my tongue. I feel the smile more than any facial change as I fall under my own enchantment. Beguiled by sensory facets that change as diamonds in sunlight. I wonder I had not noticed my beauty so thoroughly before. I cannot be disappointed, though. After so long a wait to make such a discovery now is pure magic.
I have lived inside this body for many decades and she surprises me still. Come close and I will show you the stone that has lived in my hand since childhood. A fall on a gravel driveway in the dark of a Halloween night left her there. Closer still and I will show you the scar where glass cut my back in a car accident and the place the surgeon’s knife lay fast upon my skin. Here you will see how my fingers bow slightly and over here the freckles that call to mind a constellation in a faraway galaxy. Let me show you the hands that age as all artist’s hands must. Weathered and wrinkled, traces of life beneath their nails. At this distance the green-gray pupil that has seen mountains and oceans fall beneath my feet will be readily apparent. She will, in all her extraordinary clarity, look back at you with immense openness.
Inch close enough to hear my whisper and it will thread the needle you have held out for me, magic upon your ear. For what am I, if not the very grace spirit is made of…
Meditation Travelogue 
wonderful exploration
of body
under influence
of gratitude
and chocolate 🙂
Life is always better with a bit of chocolate…
So beautiful Noelle. As great as your writing is, it is your capacity for experience that really gets me.
What a beautiful compliment, my friend. Just lovely….
Beautiful Noelle …your writing is especially soulful and touched the constellation of freckles on my body too …I feel you as a tribe I walk with thru the clouds …gorgeous expression of who you are …seriously stunning ! Love and hugs , megxxx
I really do feel this coalescing of energy amongst women like you in the blogging world, too. I love that idea – tribe. As if we have finally found our people. I was listening to a lecture recently talking about how we all see ourselves as these finite individuals, when really, we are these immense collective beings unfolding in a myriad of ways on this planet. Quite literally, I see my reflection in you.
LLOOOOVVVEEEEE.
Now you really must come by Friday so I can give you a hug!
So beautiful, I love this…
Thank you, my friend. You are yet another woman who writes of love and beauty. We are all floating on these wonderful rafts connecting to each other. I wonder if this isn’t really what is meant but the awakening of the feminine mystique.
Bodies do tell their stories, as you do yours.
Very true. It is the longest relationship we’ll ever have on this earth. Most of us would feel so much better if we made peace with the bodies we’re in. BTW, love the title of your blog….
Your writing is masterful here, Noelle, and what I want to offer in response is skating above the words that are at my disposal. I was drawn right through the body and the language to the wind of your spirit that whispers through, and reminded why such magnificent forms came into existence to begin with. Not to store or protect or to carry– but to reveal…
Michael
Love that last line, especially the word reveal. Depending on your spiritual bent, many paths believe life is all about spirit experiencing itself. In which case reveal becomes the most delicious game of hide and seek. I fall asleep into this life and then slowly wake up. Oh… There I am…
Beautiful. Poetic. Intimate. Very moving.
Thank you, my friend. Lovely to have you visit.
Fascinatingly done. Open and beautifully expressive.
Thank you, my dear.
Beautiful words Noelle. Similar to our personalities, our bodies show the result of our life experiences. And chocolate. 🙂
Always… and chocolate. I firmly believe chocolate has been the making of me…