In a Word: Body
Welcome to In a Word, a newsletter that cultivates thoughtfulness, one word at a time. If a friend forwarded you this email, click here to subscribe:
In John Mulaney’s 2018 stand-up special, he introduces a joke: “I never really knew what my body was for, besides carrying my head from room to room.” It’s probably easier for a man to view his body as negligible than it is for a woman, because our bodies are politicized, sexualized, criticized, idolized, and overlaid with morality regardless of what we think about them.
But I can relate to what John is saying here because I’ve often wanted to think of my body as nothing more than a vehicle for the more important essence of who I am. I’ve seen the body as a limitation (needy for sleep, food), a liability (susceptible to illness, to dangerous attention). Sometimes, a neutral vessel for thoughts, spirit, will, and feelings seems the best-case-scenario.
Of course it’s not that simple, even absent all the politicizing etc. women’s bodies endure. There is no separating the body from the mind from the person. The body signals what the mind cannot yet understand; it overrides the mind’s denial and oblivion. It speaks through sweaty palms and shortened breath and a prickle on the back of the neck.
I cannot write about this with any authority, as I am only just beginning to (begrudgingly) admit that my body is not only to be controlled and tolerated, but listened to and loved. My thinking on this is elementary but it’s what’s on my mind in these postpartum weeks when the body is impossible to ignore, foreign in its newfound form and function.
In August, my daughter Betsy attended a day camp for kids with her neurological condition: five days of intensive therapy, replete with games, candy, and crafts. Getting out the door for the first day took longer than expected, as everything does with an opinionated four-year-old. The camp was at the hospital only a few miles away, but after traffic and parking and cajoling the child, we were late. I walked away inexplicably overwhelmed by sadness. My chest felt tight; I had a sense of foreboding. Every step I took away from Betsy felt wrong.
I swiped tears from my cheeks on the walk back to the car, interrogating myself for a logical reason for this reaction: was it because I had been with her most days through the summer, and I wasn’t used to dropping her off somewhere all day? And that I felt those waning summer days together acutely, with school and a new baby on the horizon? Was my internal risk assessment mechanism broken after 18 months of Covid, and any activity is fraught with anxiety? Yes, probably, to all of the above, to some degree.
Only when I got back to my car and bawled for ten straight minutes, littering the floor with tissues, did I realize where I was. We had parked in this same garage when we took 13-month-old Betsy for an MRI I expected to be completely normal. We parked in the same garage and pushed her stroller along the same route I’d just walked when we got the results (not completely normal, not at all). My body knew where I was, and sounded the alarm.
I had been telling myself, “It was a stressful morning, but this is illogical; everything is fine.” Once I made the setting connection, I changed my internal dialogue: “This is a completely normal reaction to what happened here.” Notably, I did not react this way during, or after, either of those appointments. I stoically stifled tears to ask educated questions, to coordinate next steps, to be the “responsible” parent who does not fall apart. I never gave myself permission to fall apart until that moment in the car, three years later.
I’ve invested a lot of energy in presenting as a level-headed, reasonable, even-keeled mom, even when I’ve felt as unhinged as a screen door in a tornado. We are conditioned not to make other people uncomfortable with our feelings, warned that strong feelings will wreck our credibility. (Especially as women, especially as moms. You don’t want people to think you’re the c-word do you? Crazy.)
Even as I blubbered, I thought, “Wow, three years later, she’s getting the treatment she needs, she has so many people who are invested in helping her, we are so lucky.” I grasped at the redemptive angle to nullify the grief, but then I heard that other part of my brain (or maybe my gut?) again: “You can grieve what was lost and be grateful at the same time.” The thought wasn’t an epiphany, but it was the first time I applied it to myself without rebuttal.
Maybe this experience is just another lesson in what I wrote this summer, about hormones being messengers rather than enemies within. We cannot compartmentalize body, mind, heart, will, and spirit, neglecting one and prizing another as the “true essence” of our identities. Are we not defined by the whole of it? Our thoughts, and also our tears? Our convictions, and our heartbreaks? Our freckles, and our feelings?
The mind builds constraints around our consciousness it thinks will keep us good, or safe, or in control. Unchallenged, those same guardrails can keep us from being honest, known, and whole. But sometimes, on a muggy Monday, a moment of clarity breaches the wall. Our tears will make known what we will not allow ourselves to think; the body will flash in lights what we can’t put into words.
In this issue, you’ll find a poem about Crocs, a great piece about diet culture, another about c-sections, a few of my favorite things to put on my body lately, and two podcast episodes. Plus a few last links and of course, a benediction.
The Diet Industrial Complex Got Me, and It Will Never Let Me Go:
“I started seeing fat, beautiful models and actresses in catalogs, and on television shows…I sometimes choke up with love for them, and for the idea of how I could have lived if I had allowed myself to just weigh what I weighed.”
A Personal History of the C-Section resonated with me as someone whose first baby was born by emergency c-section:
“My impulse to exaggerate my stoicism felt like another shameful compensation — as if I were trying to make up for other kinds of pain I didn’t experience, unwittingly obeying the cultural script that insisted on suffering and sacrifice as the primary measures of maternal love.”
A short list of things I have loved putting on my body lately:
I have tried a lot of nursing bras and this one is the best. Actually comfortable, simple and functional.
This hand soap has the most delicate scent, and leaves my hands so so soft. It’s on Amazon, but it is much cheaper when you buy directly from the company. Their environmental mission is cool too!
I have fallen for this bougie sunscreen and now I can never go back to Banana Boat.
I hate lotion and moisturizing MY WHOLE BODY feels like too much work but this oil spritz is the easy way. Smells great, works great!
Two Dr. Becky Kennedy (a clinical psychologist focused on parenting) podcast episodes: Talking with Your Kids about Private Parts and Body Confidence Isn’t About Appearance (above is a preview to that episode)
Goodnight Boobs: An Ode to the End of Nursing
(H/T to Erin Moon’s delightful newsletter for sharing this pumpkin gem of a tweet. Subscribe if you haven’t yet!)
May we value our bodies for more than what they produce, how they’re beheld, and the consciousness they carry. May we absorb their lessons, transcending words and logic.
As always, I’d love to hear what this issue calls to mind for you! Simply respond to this email to share your thoughts with me.
Gratefully, Jacey
If you like In a Word, please share it!
Forward this email to a friend, or take a screenshot of your favorite part to share on Instagram.