The Body Cure

Lovelies,

I used to write by running.

My writing process looked like this: I'd sit at my piano, trying really hard to write a song. I'd get nowhere. Then I'd take a break and go for a run. Three miles out, I'd hear it completed and run really fast back home to record before I forgot it. 

You might be thinking, "Hey Rachel! How about bring your phone and make a voice memo!" But apparently that was some kind of thirsty. A recording device scared the songs away.

This process worked great! Apart from the slight issue that so many of my songs were mid-tempo (bpm of feet to pavement), I wrote a ton and had toned legs! But it wasn't great for my relationship to my body. Full disclosure, my relationship to my body was shoddy already. I found the body a terrible home and ignored it as much as possible meaning entirely. Yes, I exercised a ton, but for me it wasn't an embodiment practice. On the contrary, running was a practice of disembodiment. Or put differently, my embodiment practice was disembodiment.

As frequently befalls runners, one day I felt a snap. I urgently tried to find a new way to write songs. I more urgently tried to find a new way to practice disembodiment.

But life stepped in further. I received a mandate in the form of illness to embody. 

Today all of this looks so different. I practice yoga every morning. The definition of yoga is that you don't multitask. Every once in a blue moon I'll spend a yoga class writing a song -- but I do so knowing I'm no longer practicing yoga. I'm stretching and songwriting. For the most part I practice yoga to practice how to sensually, forgivingly, and self-righteously have a body. 

And my creativity is no longer relegated to a 50 minute workout. I create all day long. It's true that disembodiment made a fabulous conduit to creativity. But at a certain point I realized: I don't need a conduit. 

Also now all my songs aren't mid-tempo.

With all my love,

Rachel