“The symptoms are not problems. They’re the poetry of the body.”
Oh, this line is pure gold. It reframes everything, doesn’t it? We’re so conditioned to see discomfort as a sign of something wrong, something broken. But what if it’s not brokenness, but rather a kind of expressive language? Our bodies are storytellers, and they use discomfort, pain, and strange sensations to tell us what words can’t. It’s a radical shift to think of our physical experiences as poetry, as a form of art. It invites us to listen with a different kind of attention, a more compassionate and curious one. It’s not about silencing the body, but about letting it speak its truth, in whatever form it chooses.
every single time I have leaned into the pain and listened to it, I have learned something deep about myself. it is poetry…and sometimes poetry requires deciphering.
Isn’t she cute? I remember the moment that picture was taken. My dad took it. He had just asked me what I want to be when I grow up, and I said “a writer”
I eventually became a teacher myself. And she served as the anti-role-model…reminding me what I never wanted to become. By the time my little brother got to first grade, she wasn’t teaching there anymore. I tell myself that she didn’t last long as a teacher.
Love everything about this post and you were absolutely adorable! Those big trusting smiling eyes. I wanted to come and pop the teacher in the nose! (the mama bear in me!)😅
Fellow sensitive soul here 👋 love the "symptoms are the poetry of the body" line - I said it before when you posted it as a note, but just wanted to say it here again. It's a beautiful way to reframe something that's often pathologised, looking at it this way makes it sound more like "these symptoms are just a part of me"
I don't know where to start because I love everything about this... well, except the red scratched out mess. That makes my heart hurt! How were you able to forgive her? I assume that you have but you seem the type that forgives lol.
This reminds me about something from my British childhood, primary school about 50 years ago, which still bugs me! In something I wrote - probably "what I did at the weekend" - I wrote about reading "Ring Of Bright Water" by Gavin Maxwell. It was about an otter named Mij, short for Mijbil - the essay came back with a red line through Mij, corrected to read Midge! I was a shy child too scared to say anything about this unfairness but, to this day I wished I'd had the courage to thrust the book under my teacher's nose and yell "look, I'm right and you're wrong, it's spelt MIJ!!! (And I'm now getting annoyed writing this as spellchecker is underlining these names in red as if to say "are you sure?" )
“The symptoms are not problems. They’re the poetry of the body.”
Oh, this line is pure gold. It reframes everything, doesn’t it? We’re so conditioned to see discomfort as a sign of something wrong, something broken. But what if it’s not brokenness, but rather a kind of expressive language? Our bodies are storytellers, and they use discomfort, pain, and strange sensations to tell us what words can’t. It’s a radical shift to think of our physical experiences as poetry, as a form of art. It invites us to listen with a different kind of attention, a more compassionate and curious one. It’s not about silencing the body, but about letting it speak its truth, in whatever form it chooses.
every single time I have leaned into the pain and listened to it, I have learned something deep about myself. it is poetry…and sometimes poetry requires deciphering.
Six year old you 🥹🫶.
Isn’t she cute? I remember the moment that picture was taken. My dad took it. He had just asked me what I want to be when I grow up, and I said “a writer”
What a precious memory! Gah. I love that so.
What that teacher did was so awful!!
I eventually became a teacher myself. And she served as the anti-role-model…reminding me what I never wanted to become. By the time my little brother got to first grade, she wasn’t teaching there anymore. I tell myself that she didn’t last long as a teacher.
Love everything about this post and you were absolutely adorable! Those big trusting smiling eyes. I wanted to come and pop the teacher in the nose! (the mama bear in me!)😅
Fellow sensitive soul here 👋 love the "symptoms are the poetry of the body" line - I said it before when you posted it as a note, but just wanted to say it here again. It's a beautiful way to reframe something that's often pathologised, looking at it this way makes it sound more like "these symptoms are just a part of me"
I don't know where to start because I love everything about this... well, except the red scratched out mess. That makes my heart hurt! How were you able to forgive her? I assume that you have but you seem the type that forgives lol.
This reminds me about something from my British childhood, primary school about 50 years ago, which still bugs me! In something I wrote - probably "what I did at the weekend" - I wrote about reading "Ring Of Bright Water" by Gavin Maxwell. It was about an otter named Mij, short for Mijbil - the essay came back with a red line through Mij, corrected to read Midge! I was a shy child too scared to say anything about this unfairness but, to this day I wished I'd had the courage to thrust the book under my teacher's nose and yell "look, I'm right and you're wrong, it's spelt MIJ!!! (And I'm now getting annoyed writing this as spellchecker is underlining these names in red as if to say "are you sure?" )