The Mind and Body Connection in 2020

I didn’t blog much this year because it’s very hard to keep it up while writing a novel, revising short stories, submitting work (I didn’t submit very much either because of writing the novel but I am pleased with what I did submit), all while preparing to teach literature and writing to young minds (and that too online).

I hope to blog more frequently in 2021. I am not making any promises, but I want to thank you for reading this and anything else I have written just the same.

To sum up, here is the post on Writing News in 2020. There were many highlights but my novel (I can’t reveal the title just yet due to another bit of news I will share in January) being a runner-up in the IWC Novel Fair is something I am very proud of. It’s not just about needing outside validation—I would have kept going and prepped it for submitting to agents in 2021 anyway–but about it becoming real beyond your computer or the printed out copies.

Here is the post on how I wrote anything at all this year, Writing in 2020. It really is just about showing up without attachment to your ideal outcome.

And the last post was on Teaching in 2020. One day this experience will be a book!

Body, Mind, Beyond the Mind. 

I don’t think it’s possible to write or talk about the body without the mind and vice versa; therefore, I have combined what would have been three posts into this one post.

If there is one thing I can tell you definitively about this mad year it is this: my body carried me this year. I mean this literally. 

This is not easy to admit because I have been told my whole life that I am mentally strong, emotionally resolute, and my resilience is unparalleled. I fall and I get up. Again and again. I don’t give up and I don’t give in but I don’t mind a serious quit (a Quit is different!). I crash and rest but I don’t burn. I am not afraid to let bridges crumble without ever looking back because I know what matters. 

A lot of this way of being I can’t take credit for. In many ways, I am wired this way. It comes from my parents, genetically; but, it is also the result of seeing them, time and time again, get pushed under the tide that is life and watching them not let go, not of each other, not of us, not of their integrity. It is about noticing how they float back up, cold and bruised, laughing at their trivial existence in the grand scheme of this Universe, offering gratitude for another opportunity to graciously give their best to others. It’s not that they haven’t found themselves angry at life’s unfair turns and endured injustices by people who know better; it’s that they choose to forgive and in that one act they continue to rise beyond whatever cements people permanently in the past, missing out on the present, unable to create a future. 

When you have that kind of mental strength, that kind of ability to bounce back, it’s easy to neglect your body. You just drag your body to show up. Mind over body.

And that’s exactly what I did circa 2012-2018. Three cross-country moves. Four Schools. Five Years.

For what? To find a job where I can teach without being harassed (be it because of my ethnic background or for others feeling threatened by my intelligence as a woman or simply because I am me). Push back for what?  For inspiring students to think.

And when I did find places of employment that let me be, the systematic dysfunctions and demands were such that no physical energy for writing remained. That kind of pushing through for years takes a toll on the body. I wrote about that in 2018 and it turned into a creative nonfiction genre-bending essay, “Landscape Through the Body.” This was accepted for publication in The Fiddlehead’s Spring 2019 issue and I was paid a generous sum for it. In that essay, I traced my surgeries, dental and others. I was angry at my body for failing me, over and over again; I mourned my lack of strength. I wasn’t proud that I had no time to heal but to keep going. Rest meant some loss against Time and I was very much keeping track of time when it came to my writing journey. I had nothing to prove to anyone and yet you are your worst Timekeeper.

Well, when Time stopped in March of 2020, I decided to look at my body as if it was some kind of marvel. Beginning in April, I wanted to take note of everything I put in it. What happened with less carbs? Where else could I find sources of protein? Less sugar? We already eat very clean but what if I became even more conscious? The result was more energy.

Well, with nowhere to go and nothing to do (other than reading, writing and teaching and binge watching this or that show), what do you do with more energy? I started walking. When I was younger my athleticism was always average but I enjoyed being active.

I walked more and more. It was the best part of this summer, talking to my mother on the phone as we walked and chatted for hours in the morning before starting our days. When you are watching carbohydrate intake and walking, you will lose weight. But most importantly, you will get more energy. What to do with all this energy? 

My friend Sandy in New York City shared that her trainer was now doing sessions via Zoom. Sandy is one of the most fit people I know, even after her brain tumor surgery (so grateful she didn’t ignore signs and got things checked).  I told her, nope; I told her I doubt her trainer would work for me; I just wasn’t that fit. I had had trainers ever since I left New York. I had tried everything before. Celebrity instructors. Regular instructors. Everything. Thyroid tests. Diets. I had left no stone unturned. I just didn’t have the strength in my body that I did before 2012 when I used to practice yoga with Marco Rojas in NYC and I had to accept this aging body. My body’s fate was sealed.

But I had to do something with all this energy, other than write crappy drafts and walk. Sandy mentioned, again, that her cousin could really use an exercise buddy. I chatted with her cousin and her body type is very different than mine. She looked fit even if she said she wasn’t. “Skinny” doesn’t mean strong or even healthy, but I didn’t want to disappoint her cousin. Yet why not? We both took a risk. With Jamie’s help I re-arranged and planned our budget to give Sandy’s trainer a try. Twice a week. That was July 6th, 2020. Carolann Valentino. Yes, she is stunning, a creative artist in her own right, and well known in the fitness community without the noise of social media pages. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. (Or maybe the future?)

Let’s for a minute forget about the obvious—I know it’s very hard to talk about fitness in our society without focusing on weight loss and physical reconfiguring of the body, especially a woman’s body—and instead focus on the impact of the body turning electric, of stretching the fascia, all the deep connective tissues, into an electromagnetic field that can show up for anything. From the words in Walt Whitman’s poem,  “I Sing the Body Electric,” it was “the exquisite realization of health.” I didn’t know my body was capable of not only finding its way back to its 2012 strength but going beyond it to better strength. Therefore, when the challenges of 2020 really began, August of 2020, and I mean piled on me like boulders, I was very much being carried through yoga and sessions with Carolann Valentino no matter what else was going on. Tatiana and I are stronger than we have ever been. And it’s functional fitness. My knees and hips are stronger while walking now, my back can hold me upright better, I am in less pain and the mental strain of this year’s chaos was upheld not by the mind, but something beyond the mind, yet access to that space was provided through the generous body.

And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

from “I Sing the Body Electric” by Walt Whitman.

To ring in a new decade, I had written a post titled “2010: Sublime Flux.” When cleaning up this blog, I removed the post and what remains from it is a different post ringing in 2011.

I wrote:

Ultimately, to recognize, that you exercised choice where you could.

In 2010 I hope you and I are even “stronger” so as to gather even more pieces of our essence which set us free.

Here is to discovering what we are made of through the choices we make with the help of those we hold dear.

I didn’t even know what being strong meant then until this year happened. Or maybe I did, but not about the physical endurance required to get through this year.

Awhile ago on Twitter, a bunch of idiots said some awful things to this woman for having stated that this wasn’t the worst year for her. She lost her job, spouse, house, a child in 2008. She had said something along the lines that she was grateful to be healthy and to have a job this year. But maybe this year you lost your health, a loved one, or your job and this indeed was the worst year you have ever experienced. Either way, we must remember that we are capable of coming to the other side of everything no matter when our worst years have been. We have done it before, and we will do it again. Maybe it is your mind that will carry your body next year, and maybe it will be your body. Either way, you are already equipped for making it. In fact, you already did.

Back to the Whitman poem: