I have lived.
I have experienced a broad spectrum of feelings and emotions.
And since I, Jordana's Body, am telling you this story, I'm telling it my way. Jordana would tell it differently. But I, Body, want to tell you about things I love.
It's what Bodies do.
An hour after I was born I wailed dramatically and my mother put me on a soft blanket and I instantly cheered up and snuggled into it. I've been like that ever since. I love things that feel good.
I was put here to enjoy the richness of life.
Over the years people have tried to confuse me by telling me that this is bad, and sometimes I even assumed they were right, in a confused kind of way, because they were so sure they were right. But ascribing negative connotations to joy, beauty, reverence, and peace doesn't seem to make anybody any happier, better, or more successful, and in fact it just makes people sad and restricted. So after a while I decided to ignore everyone who told me that it is bad to appreciate the good in life. Life is full of a lot of juicy stuff, and some of that juice is drippy and delicious and sweet.
Here are some things I love.
I love lingering for hours over whatever Alice Waters tells me I'm eating that night at Chez Panisse, each bite a miracle, and then the way each bite goes with each sip of wine, poetry.
I love lying on my back in the green grass of the Sheep Meadow in Central Park and looking up at the blue summer sky through a particulate canopy of sunlit green leaves overhead.
I love making sugar scrubs with my son and filling them with flower petals and magic spells and scrubbing our feet in the big copper bowl.
I love the moment just before you're about to kiss someone for the first time when you both get quiet and the air is electric and you've lost the power of speech and all you can think is, “come here. Now.”
I love tinkering with my dance practice and dilating sensations a thousandfold and delving into the world of interoception, like a moving yoga nidra.
I love discussing the details of my exact plans for sausages that smell like feet with the sausagemonger in the four-hundred-year-old shop in rue Mouffetard and then buying the exactly right sausage and stepping out onto the street and feeling the big round smooth cobblestones slipping under my soles.
I love my naked son jumping into bed with me in the early morning and cuddling.
I love taking years to get to know someone and feeling their touch change as their trust in me grows.
I love swimming in the black warm starlit Mediterranean Sea off the coast of an uninhabited island.
I love embracing someone I love and feeling rose petals pealing uncontrollably out of their heart, rolling in great waves into mine.
I love sleeping late and waking up feeling rested and lingering half-hidden amongst sun-warmed flannel sheets.
I love being listened to by good listeners who want to hear what I, Body, have to say.
I love frisking around in nothing at all, and I love decorating myself in swirling rainbow silk clothes and finery.
I love sitting in the sun in Fort Mason Community Garden under the fig tree, smelling the rosemary and the roses and the lavender and the mint, watching the butterflies butt and the dragonflies dragon, listening to the hummingbirds hum, and feeling everything around me growing.
I love a man who knows himself well enough to hold me in a way that says, “it's this.” And then I, Body, say, “oh! It's this?” And then he says, “yes. It's this.” And then I say, “oh.” That is my idea of a good conversation.
I love waiting to feel what people will do next.
I love old plaid flannel shirts, velvet cloaks with satin-lined hoods, fleece blankets, and lace knickers with pink roses. I love moth-eaten cashmere sweaters. I love handmade supple slipperlike strappy stilettos that move with me and let me feel with every one of the little muscles in my feet.
I love feeling the energy of people who understand how to focus their energy.
I love hearing the confessions of other bodies.
I love discovering positive new sensations and being reminded of familiar ones.
I love moving, and I love being still. I love constantly reassessing what I'm doing in asana. I love scampering, and I love lying around. I love pushing my boundaries...a little bit.
I love balance. I love being valued for what I was born knowing.
I love being given the space, attention, and respect I need and deserve.
I love knowing that the buck stops with me.