My sick leave from work has given me an extraordinary opportunity to sit down to finish some writing projects. It has also afforded me time to reflect on my relationship with own body, which has always been fraught. So while browsing through my old journals from way back, I came across this journal entry that I wrote 11 years ago. Reading it now while I’m recovering from a rather debilitating condition such as endometriosis, it dawns on me that this entry is possibly the nicest note that I’ve written for my own body. It is very intimate, and it captures a state of being that I wish I could return to again:
11 years ago
I was only saying to myself yesterday how particularly buoyed I felt. The feeling continued well into the early part of the day today. I also discovered yesterday that I might have entered my fertile days. In my 32 years of existence, it was only yesterday that I was able to make a connection between my fertile period and the feeling of being at peace and being happy. This is a particular body awareness that has made such an impact on me. Suddenly a lot of things made sense. What we experience here is nature as its most serious best to ensure the propagation of species. The flood of pleasure-inducing hormones opened the water gates of creativity as well as it un-freeze a long, long bout of writer’s block in me.
Even as I sit here and write, I can feel the hum of my clitoris and vagina; really feels as if my entire reproductive system is singing!
All these feelings are so unusual in a surprising and wonderful manner. Surely, this is what it means by body-Praxis, when one gets to be acquainted with one’s bodily processes. The ease with which I can speak, think and articulate sex, desire and want do not come naturally to me. I was taken up into thinking that to own one’s sexual part is to engage in dirty act—the body itself is dirty and shameful. Indeed, it got me a long time to come to terms with my own body.
I am so grateful that I was able to make links between being happy and being fertile.
It speaks of an awakened ability of being aware of my own bodily processes in a positive way and not to always regard them as a nuisance and inconvenience. I wish that the surge would last for a long time, enough for me to bring into a full-term some creative tasks I started. Though I recognize that it may end soon and will in fact bring in its wake depression-inducing hormones, I will always treasure these feelings that I have now, and will look forward to their arrival till the next time.
cafe public intellectual 