Thursday, April 25, 2013

Three on Thursday: Love Your Body

Life is beautiful.  It is hard, but- "It's the shadows and the shit that make the light bits believable," as Victoria Finlay put it in  Color.  {Great book on the history(s) of color/pigments-READ IT!} 

It's been a difficult week, full of ups and downs beyond the scope of my typical week.  Today has been exceptionally good though.  Elated with good news and full of life I decided to run to express my gratitude to be alive, and as I walked back home during my cool down I thought about three little things that we take for granted.  Dear Reader, I want you to think about these things in a new light.

The older I get the more attractive I find fine lines.  Strange, perhaps, but true.  As I reached my mid twenties they became a curiosity to me.  A few years ago I read something about how you earn your wrinkles.  Think about it- instead of regretting the sun damage that exacerbated your fine lines, think of them as reminders of the great times when you were too busy being present in the moment to worry about your skin {but please put on sunscreen in the future}.  Or remember all the joys and laughter of your life that earned you those trophies.  When I see fine lines now I don't think about age, I see wisdom, laughter, survival.

Kinesis-movement is such a gift!  Oh how we are made to move.  Our culture is saturated with inspiration to move for weightloss, or art, but what about just pure joy. To move because we are full of life! Because we can!?  To move because life is short and there are far too many people who don't have the freedom to move either politically, physically, or even emotionally.  Oh Reader it doesn't matter how you decide to move.  You don't have to run or do yoga.  You could skip a few of your steps towards some destination. You could simply marvel at the movement of your fingers.

Finally, scars.  Yes, scars.  Here I will leave you with this beautiful quote from Chris Cleave's Little Bee "...I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived."

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