Day 19 prompt – listening to what the body has to say
Hello Body, I am listening.
Carrie, I need you to know exactly how tired I am — no, not exactly, that is a term you would to measure something that wafts and flows and defies the work of measurement. I am tired. I keep drifting, sliding sideways into sleep but you don’t seem to notice or read this as a warning. You think — oh, body just needs more stimulation. My God, I am so stimulated that I only relax when — no, I do not relax, I fall, I slip, I slide. And furthermore, I am not “I” the way you see seem to think of it, or us. I am we, multiple, flowing, shifting, changing.
So yes, hard to read.
But we send out signals, like falling asleep sitting upright as soon as the mind eases its grip on us. We do what we can to support you (you?), we will hone our muscles and suffer and quake and we can endure a great deal of pain in support of your causes and whims —no, that’s too harsh.
We are doing our best to please you (you?), to relieve you (you?). Can you relieve us? Feed us. You seek to control us, deny us, mete out pleasure in tiny doses lest we become overwhelmed and greedy, and sink into — what? Bliss? A morass of nothingness?
Let’s be friends. We like to breathe and sweat. We like ever so much to stretch and breathe too. But we are tired, tired, tired. Give us leave to change. Will you let us age and spread? Will you let us fail you and not call it failure? Can we be kind across all spectrums of experience and sensation?
Things change, no matter how hard you push to hold on.
I can give you (you?) pleasure and rest. Trust what’s rising. The body knows how little time it has, how precious and advancing the hours. But also how much time too — the body is not begging for accomplishment. The body will luxuriate in sensation, give us leave to show you how beautiful you are in this world of beauty and loss.
Body, I am, Body, we belong to, we know, we are made of beautiful loss.
xo, Carrie
PS I’m in the middle of a 30-day series of journaling prompts from Suleika Jaouad. This was today’s outpouring. I’m also using my reorganized studio space for a daily drawing ritual, which includes a very quick sketch capturing one moment and one phrase from the day; a word for the day (usually taken from my daily journaling); and a sketch using a photo from today’s newspaper, in pen and coloured with water colour markers. It’s been a tough start to the new year on many levels and from many angles, and this studio, completely reorganized during the final days of 2025, has been my bliss, renewal, and recovery.