April Awakening: Day Fourteen
☀️
“Stand up straight, shoulders back, stomach in, chest out!” I can hear my grandmother say. It was her way to tell us kids we were slouching and to correct our postures. I actually said this same thing to my mother the other day, as she slouches as she walks. We’re at the point where we need to get her a walker, just to help out. And I’m not saying my posture is perfect. It’s far from it, actually. I get a little hunched when I walk. Being top heavy doesn’t help. So today, I made an actual effort to course correct and try a new pose.
“I walk with my hips first,” a friend once told me after ending a years-long unhappy relationship. She had felt so unfettered, so freed after breaking away, she couldn’t help but let the world know where the energy was focused. So I decided to take a page from her too, walking home in a different sort of posture, where I was up straight, shoulders back, stomach in, which pushed my hips out. I wasn’t swangin’, but I was leaning into the grace of it all, imagining I was getting looks (and maybe I was), just experiencing a new way to carry myself. I felt my back muscles get their own sort of workout by the time I got home, and, like a successful workout, it only makes me want to keep practicing my new satisfying steps.
“Would you hate me if I got breast reduction surgery?” was a question I posed in one of the last conversations I had with someone. The answer was “Probably,” but I knew it wasn’t serious. But I have considered it, as there’s some things the body was just not meant to do. But as long as the awareness is within, and I don’t succumb to the ‘text neck’ posture New York City is so accustomed to, I can transform my perception, both inside and out. I’ll make sure one of my outside trips during these vacation days includes a walk. I’m too comfortable going to places to sit and write. If anyone has ideas of how to type and walk, I’m all ears.
One Comment