Living in the Body by Joyce Sutphen

Body is something you need in order to stay

on this planet and you only get one.

And no matter which one you get, it will not

be satisfactory. It will not be beautiful

enough, it will not be fast enough, it will

not keep on for days at a time, but will

pull you down into a sleepy swamp and

demand apples and coffee and chocolate cake.

Body is a thing you have to carry

from one day into the next. Always the

same eyebrows over the same eyes in the same

skin when you look in the mirror, and the

same creaky knee when you get up from the

floor and the same wrist under the watchband.

The changes you can make are small and

costly—better to leave it as it is.

Body is a thing that you have to leave

eventually. You know that because you have

seen others do it, others who were once like you,

living inside their pile of bones and

flesh, smiling at you, loving you,

leaning in the doorway, talking to you

for hours and then one day they

are gone. No forwarding address.

Living in the Body

I find Sutphen has a way of making a straightforward statement in such a way that it can make you pause and consider its meaning: Body is something you need in order to stay / on this planet and you only get one. True, we need a body and we only get one, but there is more to be said. She speaks to the universal discontent most (all?) of us feel at one time or another about the body we have been given – not beautiful enough, smart enough, just not quite good enough.

We carry these bodies with us from day to day, the same eyebrows over the same eyes in the same skin – isn’t this what we see looking into the mirror each morning? Do we look with wonder and appreciation, or critically, noticing the fine lines, the graying hairs? And then there are the creaky knees and hips. We can make some small changes but these can be expensive – better to leave it as it is.

Body is a thing that you have to leave eventually, another unarguable statement. This you know to be true because you have / seen others do it, others who were once like you. Think of all the people you have known, close to you or not, living inside their pile of bones and / flesh, smiling, loving, talking to you until one day they / are gone. They have left this life, these living, breathing bodies, without so much as a forwarding address. Isn’t that just how life is? So short. Only one life. So precious.