As I get older...

A wish for and from my body

As I get older I want to use my body more, not less. I want to run towards it, not away.


I want to spend more time with clay between my fingers and glaze staining my palms.
I want to spend more time with my hands in the dirt and my feet in the sand.
I want to spend more time singing in harmony and dancing in chaos.


I want to feel the way my breath moves down my spine.
I want to feel the way the turquoise sea holds me buoyant.
I want to feel the way my hips form waves and my arms create spirals.


I want to take to memory the scent of jasmine, rain and passionfruit.
I want to be woken by the dawn bird calls and sent to sleep by the buzz of the night insects.
I want to taste bitter and sweet, hot and salty, sour and tart.


I want to sip tea in ceremony, watch the moonlight form shadows on my limbs and the sun warm by bones.
I want to know the creases on my skin and of another.
I want to hold hands, hearts and hope.


I want to spend more time with my pen on a pad of paper and less time with my nose in screens and my nails knocking against a keyboard.
I want to spend more time with my toes in the grass and less time with my head in the sky.
I want to spend more time seeing, hearing and touching and less time resisting, judging and analysing.


I believe we get it wrong when we say the body fades. It only changes and to know this change is to know life. To bypass this change is to bypass life and is how we fade.
Rather I want to be intimate with life, all of it, every passing year;
My own and that of those alongside me.


As I get older I want to know my body more, not less.
As I get older I want to honour my body more, not less.
As I get older I want to love my body more, not less.