My Body, My New Friend.

I took two Body Step classes in 24 hours. During today's class, I had this thought: I don't need the body I used to have. The body I have now is the one I need for now.

I took my first prenatal yoga class back in Jamaica Plain. It dovetailed well with the birth class we were taking at that time. "Relax, relax, relax like your life depends on it." This was my script at that time, a first-time mama, full of anxiety and a strict desire to do right in my new role. There, in the dim studio that smelled of patchouli and feet, we were trying to be vessels for our babies. I did some of my best meditation and prayer there, it was the first place I felt Manny move.

Post-natally and for years thereafter, that yogic relaxation was essential. Let labor happen, let your milk down, relax about the co-sleeping, ease up on the scheduling. Let your baby sleep. The most challenging thing in my first yoga class was to hold a pose for the length of a contraction. Then at my first yoga classes here in Philly, pregnant with Clara, I began to understand yoga as an exercise of strength. Strength for labor's marathon, for sure. But strength for conviction to do a homebirth, strength for a noetic resilience to put my face into the wind and accept what was ahead.

Physically speaking, though, during those years, I was soft. Not like sedentary soft but soft like an inviting bosom for nursing. Soft like a comforting place to rest after a toddler's fall. Now, though, a different strength is called for. The strength to hold down a drug-affected 9 year old whose feet are almost as big as mine. The strength to carry that 9 year old out of a bad MRI. The physical discipline to get up at 6 sharp, retrieve a forgotten violin, and still chase down the bus.

I used to feel the fatigue and hunger of a woman whose body was a vessel for a growing baby. Coming downstairs at 9pm hungry for dinner as if I had never eaten the full dinner I had, in fact, eaten at 6. Those languid breastfeeding sessions, when I would get up and eat bananas and a whole quart of yogurt. Now, however, my fatigue rushes on me when I sit down in front of a movie. And my hunger is much more distinguishing--I want a plate of warm, perfectly-seasoned food with seltzer and a lemon wedge. If it's not going to knock my socks off, I usually hold off on eating.

I think my salt and pepper hair are forming my new body-image. Where it used to be soft and Marmee-ish-- a soft but potent femininity. I really like the strength that I have, even though I'm not used to it. I guess more of a Binoche from Dan in Real Life, mysterious and complicated but can outrun her fitness instructor. Or Mrs.Felicity Fox--a landscape painter who can disarm a bad guy and throw him over her leg. And I don't mind that silver hair is associated with aging because yes, I am aging. I don't mind that I will never have a flat belly. Because yes, I have carried children. And if you remember when I was pregnant with Calliope, my belly was unbelievably fecund. I really don't miss that. I wanted to be a mom while I was still young. Young enough to chase the hell out of them. Young enough to take a kickboxing class with them, us doing jump-kicks side by side in the mirror.