Amazement

Last week, we were on the fourth floor,
in a waiting room where many of the faces had been surgically
reconstructed. There were slightly wonky cheeks, chins, and
foreheads everywhere we looked. Leaving that area, we walked through
the breast cancer waiting room filled with bald and balding heads.
Just before we got on the elevator, we passed a sign for a chemo day
care. I doubled over, seeing that one.

What occurs to me is that we have far
less control than we’d like over life, death, and much of what
happens to our bodies in between.

Before this happened, I would have
found this discouraging. Not so, now. Now, I feel a lot clearer
than I used to.

My choice is just to love my body or
not. To treat it with love or not. To appreciate every move it makes
and to be grateful for what it is instead of dwelling on what it
isn’t.

This morning, in Downward Dog, I’m
amazed by the dorsiflexion in my ankles. Amazed by the strength of my
shoulders, amazed by the beautiful stubbornness of my tight
hamstrings, amazed that I have hamstrings at all.

My lovely man is now my lovely one-eyed
man. His tumor eye has been replaced by a bionic eye. I would have
been discouraged by this before. Now, I’m amazed by how fortunate
we are.

I have a wish to pass along. I wish
that you go through today’s practice amazed by your body in all
its lovely complexity. We’re lucky to be here at all.

Thanks to yoga for being the perfect teacher of amazement. Thanks to you for the conversation,

kristin