Ten Ways To Be Your Body
Has capitalism turned you into a soulless robot? Here's a list of lush ideas to breathe in and swirl around until you feel yourself again.
A friend told me she needed to get back in touch with her body, that the changes in her body as she grows and time passes are unwanted, that she felt not herself, not sensual, “not a person, almost.” Do you feel that, too?
We live in a culture that wants desperately to deny that we have bodies, and especially that those bodies are vulnerable and mortal. In our racist, colonialist, capitalist hellscape every body is supposed to be young, thin, white, sexually attractive, healthy, strong, completely independent, fully free of all emotions except happiness and rage, heterosexual, heavily armed, and probably male, besides.
We have a bunch of words to code and mark people who are unable to hide that their bodies are not all those things, to make sure people are put into their place, and one of those words that fascinates me is “disabled” (and its offensive antonym, “able-bodied”). Because disability is not a binary state. In fact, all bodies come equipped with certain abilities and certain vulnerabilities, and then the older you get, you add more. But our ableist culture is such that the abilities may not be trusted unless you have properly hidden the vulnerabilities, so those who can, often do, which is how you get 77-year-old women who look like Dolly Parton, and 64-year-old women who look like Madonna. It’s why, even though I’ve followed 101-year-old fashion icon Iris Apfel for years, it wasn’t until a jewelry artist I know posted a candid picture of her trying on handmade jewelry a few months ago that I realized she was a wheelchair user. There are no pictures of Iris in a wheelchair on her own social media. It’s why FDR, who was paralyzed by polio and used a wheelchair throughout his presidency, pretended to walk and to stand in public, and confiscated virtually all photos that showed him “disabled or weak,” such that even today few people realize that a wheelchair user was president. It’s why people refuse to use canes, and walkers, and wheelchairs, even when they would help. It’s why people buy weight loss schemes and shapewear and wrinkle cream, even though they mostly don’t. It’s why people will run for an hour a day and lift weights “for their health,” but won’t wear an N95 facemask for the same.
Yes, well. Your body is strong — it has had to be strong, to survive all this shit and all this trauma these past few years; it has survived a pandemic and your shitty health insurance and, god, so much gunfire. Your body is strong, but, it is also soft. Your body has many amazing abilities; it can breathe, for one thing (perhaps with help, but still), it has a heart that beats (perhaps with help, but still) about 100,000 times every day, unceasingly, and so much more, too: perhaps it can run or play or fuck or birth a baby or feel rain and sunlight or chop wood or make bread or write sonnets. But it is also achingly vulnerable and weak and small and feeble. Maybe you do not yet use a wheelchair, or need the daily help of a nurse yet (or maybe you do!). But even if you don’t: Perhaps you cannot read without glasses, or do your own taxes, or drive. Perhaps you pee when you laugh. Perhaps you’re not strong enough to move, and you have to hire movers, because none of your friends are strong enough to come and do it for pizza and beer. And no matter how strong and independent and young and buff and amazing you are: I’ll wager that not a single one of you sowed and grew and picked the cotton and spun, and wove, and sewed it into the shirt and jeans you’re wearing, and not only that, I’ll wager that you actually could not, even if you had to. You are simply not that independent and strong. You are not even “able-bodied” enough to independently save yourself from nakedness.
Thank goodness we don’t have to be. The experience of being human and having a body does not need always to be one of resistance, of strength, of back-breaking or soul-destroying work. The human body is lush, and soft, and silky, the color of earth and fur and surf and cloudy skies. The bodily experiences of rest and connection, of love and lust, of tears and heart-thumping fear, of ecstasy and grief, are astonishingly open to us at almost any moment, if we just settle into ourselves and allow ourselves to experience them in our bodies. So here’s a list of 10 ways to return to dwelling in your body, and experiencing the lush and juicy banquet of being human. If you like these, I might post some more, some time.
Rent a private pool and take a swim. The buoyancy of water is heart-lifting and spirit purifying; it’s difficult to maintain your misery in water. Swimply (the Airbnb of pools) will rent you a private pool for maximum COVID safety and luxuriousness at a fairly affordable tariff. Even if you don’t have any cash, you can still try it once: That link — which is my referral link — will get you $100 in Swimply credit, more than enough to rent a pool.
After you’ve had your free private pool swim, nature still has all its gifts for you. Find a swimming hole, preferably with a waterfall, and compare God’s gifts with the Internet’s in terms of how embodied and alive they make you feel. If you can’t really swim, wade or bob in shallow water, or wear a lifevest to feel secure.
In fact, why not make your float into a full-on spiritual experience? Many religions use water for ritual purification or to mark life transitions, like a conversion, the arrival or Shabbat, or a gender transition. For Jews, the mikveh has a spiritual power I’ve never otherwise experienced. You can go to a mikveh for this experience, or you can seek out a natural body of water for a mikveh. Not Jewish? Purifying yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka amounts to the same thing. If your body isn’t safe immersed in water (e.g., because of health equipment attached to you that runs on electricity), can you get up to the water’s edge and at least float your toes? A good foot soak or wading experience is often enough to feel your spirit rising from the ground up.
If water doesn’t float your spiritual boat, what about going the other direction, into material adornment? Get an outfit that has you feeling yourself. Got a lot of money? Spend it on couture from a small (or not small, what the hell) designer. Some of my favorites: Pinsent Tailoring for Edwardian menswear. Rachelle Appelle for circus and performance wear, as well as bridal and suiting. Delina White for contemporary Anishinaabe designs. Kay Chula Designs for loungewear. Samantha Pleet for arty women’s wear. Sylvie Facon or Teuta Matoshi for super-femme fantasy gowns. Michael Costello or Christian Siriano for something a femme could wear to the Oscars.
Got only some money? Try some vintage or hyperlocal fashion shopping, for example with Gemini and Scorpio (in NYC and online), Costume Closet (NYC, festival wear, rent or buy), Audrey Rose Vintage (Twin Cities), GlamDiggers Vintage (Twin Cities), Cake Plus Size (Twin Cities) The Fitting Room (Twin Cities, not vintage, mostly, but all local designers), Unique Vintage (not vintage but “vintage-inspired”).
Got no money? Host a clothing swap with friends, or visit a swap closet, where everything is free and you can share with others if you have extra. Here’s one in Saint Paul. There’s another one in George Floyd Square in Minneapolis. If you don’t have one in your community, you could start one.
Now that you’ve got a new lewk, have the Official Fashion Week of the United States of Me. Find a runway — a bridge, a crossroads at midnight under a full moon, a hotel lobby, a secret ruin, a rail trail, whatever, and model your look. Take pictures. Have a whole entire photoshoot.
Speaking of which, as long as you’re having a fashion show and a photoshoot, you may as well put together a glam team and get all made up and coiffed and what not. (You’re not a femme? This is all the more so an embodied experience for you, then. You should try it.) Supermodel Tess Holliday has been hosting glam sessions and photoshoots in LA that sound fun. If money is an object, hair modeling can be an opportunity to get a salon visit for free, and stylists are generally seeking all genders and all kinds of people to model. In the Twin Cities, opportunities often get posted here; there’s probably something similar in your city.
You’re clean, you’re glam, you’re ready for your date… with yourself. Sexuality offers an enormous number of opportunities for embodiment, and it’s also a lot of pressure. All the sexist, misogynist, racist, fat hating, ableist, ageist tropes we’ve ever been taught rise effortlessly to mind whenever we think of sex. Our sexual fantasies are colonized. So how can we slip out of these boring stories that hold us in thrall and end up somewhere more interesting and orgasmic? I’m no expert, but Annie Sprinkle is, and she and her partner Beth Stephens are suggesting you take the wind for a lover these days. Feel hir gentle caresses as erotic on your nude body, and let that experience guide you to other fetishes you might have for the earth. If your relationship with our planet gets serious, you can even marry hir. But even just exploring the physicality and eros of literally everything all around you can be a powerful way to feel yourself.
Still too much pressure? You’re not up for physical exercise, sex, spirituality, or for God’s sake certainly not trying to look pretty as a way of living more into your body and its needs, desires, experiences? It’s OK. Sometimes simple is best. And in that case, my suggestion is to moisturize. A little bit of richly scented lotion rubbed into any dry skin, slowly, with intention, and taking time to smell the roses or lily of the valley or cinnamon or whatever it is, is a simple way of connecting with your body and offering it symbolic nurturance. My favorite lotion right now is this one, but experimenting with drugstore lotions, fancy local elixirs, and the tony department store stuff, as suits your budget and taste, will probably yield you something you like as well.
So that’s 10 for a start. I have at least 15 more off the top of my head, so if you like this post, let me know, and I’ll reprise this series. In the meanwhile, tell us: What are your favorite ways of getting embodied? Speak up in the comments, and as always, like, share, and subscribe to keep this content coming.