Maybe this will end up being redundant, but...

I just want to keep writing, so I'm going to.

There's a lot I've been thinking of lately. Here's one theme: bodies. I mean, come on, wow, they are amazing!!

I work at an elementary school, and every day I see kids using their bodies at recess--leaping, lunging, falling, running, tumbling, twirling, swinging! So much energy! So much fun! All shapes and sizes, moving together in the joy of experiencing motion in the great outdoors. (Or the small, fenced-in outdoors. But I digress...) I see this and notice an elegance about it, a noble simplicity in the operation of the sinews, just for the sake of feeling muscles slide under the skin. It fascinates me.

I think of all the messages we receive, bombarding us day in and day out, regarding our bodies. I think of what an arbitrary audience, whom the majority of us are very aware of and care desperately about, has decided is ideal, and the hours and days and years we spend feeling bad about ourselves because we don't fit that limited ideal. And it makes me sad. It makes me sad that we buy into it, and bring ourselves so much unhappiness doing so. And one reason I love watching these kids every day is because they haven't gotten entirely entrenched in those self-comparisons yet. If they want to run, they do, even though they're not "athletes" with "runner's bodies." They climb on monkey bars. They try cart-wheels and give piggy-back rides and explore movement, freely utilizing the bodies that make it possible. They just do  it, and enjoy their bodies without realizing that they are being free in a way many thousands of adults don't know how to easily access anymore. I admire their care-free courage and envy them their ability to be in the moment so throughly. I hope they enjoy every moment of it.