In a recent writing space we were given the prompt: how would you look if you could show up in a place that really knows you as you are, right now? For me that raised a deeper question as to how we see ourselves. If there is a place, or a person, that sees us as we truly are – would they see what we see? When we think of who we truly are – how many of our outer layers do we strip away to get to that essence? And perhaps most importantly – how many of them could we strip away, if we were minded to do so?
How would I look?
I would look happy, content. I would shine with the love I feel for someone who doesn’t know it yet, and that I am beginning to feel for myself – the latter being a precondition for daring to share theformer. I would look young again. Young as the world is young, young as the stars are young. I would look like springtime and like the mountains under winter snow. I would look the way one of my teachers looks when he drops into flow mid-conversation, totally at ease with who he is and what he does. I would look ever so slightly wild and utterly totally free.
I would look the way I look when I dance and know that no-one is watching.
My age and my story would still be written on my body, but it would not be weathered or weather-worn – it would simply be what it is – resilient, perhaps, in the way that a dry-stone wall is resilient rather than in the way of woven willow. It would bear testament to the living of a life.
Ah but I would smooth the edges. I would un-grey my hair and smooth my hands and the movement that I am committing to in so many forms will work its lightening magic.
But I will always be more ‘woman’ than ‘lady’ and probably more tomboy than either. For all I love my lace and flounces…my feet walk upon the earth, and they beg to be bare or properly, securely, ensconced in boots.
The poem which prompted the prompt is Weathering, by Fleur Adcock. In it she suggests that places do not care how we look – that may be true, but I believe that they do care, the wild, open places, they care how we feel. When we are unhappy, they seek to console us. When we are lost, they offer us a home. When we are content, they offer up their beauty in the heartbeat that allows us to look and be childlike in a Wow! moment. The spaces, the wild, open spaces, are old and wise…and they know us better than we know ourselves. They know what we need, and they offer it up for our taking. They will not force themselves upon us. On the contrary, they are shy and retiring, and require us to likewise withdraw into them.
But they are there for the finding…and they can care for us, if we are brave enough, vulnerable enough, wild and open enough ourselves to allow them to do so.
I am coming back to being able to do that. I am leaving behind the years of being what others needed me to be…and so in the mundane world I find myself happily riding back from the coast in a t-shirt pulled over a wet swimsuit and my hair all tangled, because who takes a hair brush to thebeach, and somehow I was swimming before remembering to tie it up.
There are those (and I have been one of them) who say that it takes a measure of courage to be who we are. Sometimes I disbelieve that. Sometimes I think all it takes is a measure of forgetfulness. On a hot day, after walking, there was no question but that I would walk into the sea. Carefully, like the water tiger that I am, placing feet one at a time, testing for slippery stones and shifting sands, until that point where, apparently, I just stood, and dropped down into it.
And afterwards I forgot to care how I looked.
I haven’t swum the sea enough for many years. Being back in the pool is a daily blessing, but walking into the waves is different. It is childhood. It is memory. It is growing young again. I remember bathing suits and boats and a stranger that I played with for hours and never saw again. I remember patched Lilo’s and rubber rings and laughter. I remember the innocence of those summers. When I say I want to grow young again, those are the feelings I want to recapture.
How would I look if I could show up in a place that really knows me? I would look happy, and dishevelled; I would look salt&sanded, I would look tired and still curious, and thoughtful…
…and I would almost certainly have a pen in my hand.
