Nerve to Nerve

My body is a community
Of tiny worlds
That are no tinier than
Humans to one another.
Their entire lives driven
By their role and purpose.
I wonder
if they know what
they are meant to do.
Or if they question “why do I exist”
As I do
Watching shifting clouds
In skys of steaming coffee.

Do white blood cells know they are warriors?
Fighting for the good fight for another day?

Does connective tissue know they are cables that hold together bones and other flesh that form what I call my body?

Does fascial tissue hug muscles and nerves with the care realizing that without its embrace,
The rest would fall apart.

And the foundation,...
I’m not quite sure what that would be.
Perhaps,
A chromosome that started it all.

I have been reminded
that my body is a community,
A community of meandering paths and systems
that all must work together.
When one has succumbed,
The rest feel its struggle.
And must aid or fall as well.
Because a community is only as good as their ability to work together.
There must be trust that everyone matters
And will be taken care of.

Sickness is the hurricane that tests all that came before.
To survive is to grow.
Learn the ways of the world,
And take the next hurdle with more ease.
Until one day,
Breathing is easy.

Rest is the container in which
The hope to overcome can bloom.
And it absolutely matters
That every cell to limb
Believes together,
We can.
We will.

It is only in travelling through my own community
That I see that we creatures of this world,
Collectively,
Are the fractals of a community.
Our nervous systems,
Wired to listen and respond.
Are contagious in our energy.
Together, we heal.
Divided, we deteriorate.

So, neuron to neuron,
I reach for you,
And open the cells around my heart,
Asking,
What kind of life shall we create?

Reflections

When I posted this on Instagram, I hadn't finished the piece yet. I had been working on it for weeks, but I was too down and out to do it. That morning, I picked up the pen before I had anything to drink and started drawing. I drew the hands, knowing I was drawing them kind of unshapely and oddly formed with all the mistakes showing... but I kept going until I couldn't. And then I posted it unfinished.

There was some kind of "fuck it" freedom in doing that... A I-stopped-giving-a-shit-cause-I-don't-have-any-energy-to kind of force. A force that was all of the little I had to create...I hadn't actually drawn for over a week. The message of what I wanted ...needed to share, was more important. I learned that art is not the finished piece, but the means and the message in it. Of course, different art pieces have different purposes so this doesn't apply to all art. But for me, this is my art. My art wants people to know they matter. That we all matter and need each other to heal as a whole. We are solo and a whole....each of our individual efforts and the work we do matters. And I needed to share that at this time, even if it wasn't done. There was something in that too that made me embody the understanding that we will never fully be "ready", "done", "complete"...we can only give what we got now and do ouur conscious best. Being sick shows me what its like to want to do something, be someone I am, but can't. And it reminds me the humility of being a mere human trying to be, love and live.