Legs
“I can’t wear my reading glasses in the shower, so I can’t do the detailed work I used to do.”
I just shaved my legs, a sure sign of Spring. I’m looking at them now, and I missed some hairs. I can’t wear my reading glasses in the shower, so I can’t do the detailed work I used to do.
They’re also a bit mottled. There are bruises and scrapes from when I tried to scramble up a muddy Vermont hill last weekend. There are scars from the mosquito bites I anxiously scratched last summer. They feel nice and smooth though, which I love. I forgot how much I love that.
I’ll get a mani-pedi tomorrow. I head to NYC next Saturday and I want to look my best. I’ll get my eyebrows waxed, too, and pluck any chin hairs that have sprouted.
The kid is moving to NYC, and I’m driving her there. We’re both freaking out a little. It’s been the two of us together now for a decade, moving from place to place, finding home in each other.
My body was her first home, back when my legs were less mottled and my knees didn’t hurt when I went down stairs. She lengthened my feet, spread my hips, made my belly soft.
Once she was out in the world, she became my home, too. For years I slept with her curled up against my back.
Now I sometimes sneak in to hug her while she’s sleeping.
For a long time, my body was nearly as much hers as it was mine. She’d hang on me, jump on me, give me things to hold as if my hands were part of her.
Now my body is mine again. When I started having sex again, six years after my divorce, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to see my body again as anything other than a mother’s. Several generous men helped me with that, running their hands over my soft curves. I’d send nudes, carefully posed, face hidden, to men I knew and men I didn’t, happy to be sharing what was mine again.
Then my body became a comfort again for a while, curled up with a body that was a comfort to me.
Now it’s just me in the bed again, and soon it will be just me in the apartment. I did send a nude to a man recently, but I was tucked under the covers, wet hair strewn over my face. I wasn’t trying to show him how sexy I was, but how tired, how unhinged.
The phrase “just me, rattling around the house” keeps going through my head. It’s from some tv show or movie, maybe both. It’s a common phrase, I think. Now I picture myself rattling around the apartment like a ball in a tilting maze. I have projects and friends and activities to fill the days ahead. Still, I imagine my body as the only one taking up space and it’s overwhelming.
I’ll be okay, but not yet.
Oh Jen, this is beautiful! HOW CAN SHE BE MOVING? They were both just on the swings!!!