On Being a Body

author’s photo of the author (obviously not taken by the author but by a dear friend)

The beginning is always tricky, when you mine memory for the roots of something. I can point to two early memories, though, of when I first became aware of my body, of having a body, of being a body. As with most things, it came about because of someone else, another pointing to it.

I remember hanging about in the gym in elementary school, waiting for the bus or waiting for something. There was a group of us all sitting together, &…