Montreal, Nov 7, 2018, 7:49 pm (action for refilling my bucket; after a long day of public presentation)

Action notes: I sat in CC’s living room, and, at first felt a deep sense of “dropping into” my body and “touching” the masses of my thighs, the width of my fingers, with a kind of “listening-focus” — though what I was doing was not “hearing.” I didn’t actually hear any sounds. But the act of working to listen – actually, not metaphorically – to my body (eyes closed, palms over my eyes to keep out the light, both of which seemed crucial) was a different way of relating to its tiredness, its aches, than I normally engage in. This felt slower, more exploratory…it left me feeling a little nourished (sorely needed) and a little curious as to what this action might engender on another day.

Action constraints: People in the upstairs apartment – kids? A playdate? – were hooting and hollering and running in a way that has (at the very least) taught me how poorly insulated the ceiling of this apartment is. I could imagine, with a different listening exercise, including those sounds and folding them into my experience, especially since I know (at least logically) that the sounds were materially travelling through my flesh in order for me to even hear them, but, at the moment, they occurred as “outside” of the parameters of the action and I resisted them.

body