Today Mom came home from the hospital. She walked through the front door, sat down in “her chair,” and hasn’t gotten up since. Both my sister and I have felt under the weather all day–wiped out, tired. Maybe mine is my chronic sinus problem. Regardless, we’re quite the pitiful lot. My three-year-old nephew, Ander, on the other hand, has been full of energy. Sometimes that kid is so loud, I swear he could wake the dead–or at least his sleeping uncle. I honestly think you could strap him to the top of an ambulance and tell him to scream, and it’d be just as effective as any siren. Of course, he doesn’t care that he’s loud. Nor does he care that he spilled an entire bowl of shredded cheese on the living room carpet.

Kids–not giving a shit since the beginning of time.

This afternoon while my sister and aunt were changing my mom’s bandages, Ander and I went outside to play with his scooter. Well, he played with his scooter–I decided I was too big for it. He only fell over once (we were on our way to the mailbox, then all of a sudden–plop). Thankfully, he bounced right back up, like a little ball of rubber. No kidding–children are like Tupperware–virtually indestructible. Also, boys apparently have no concept of dirt. Maybe some of the gay ones do, but I really think any boy has to start doing his own laundry before he really “gets it.” Ander kept “accidentally” falling down in our front yard, right where our friendly neighborhood gopher and the recent rain have turned what was once a lush, green lawn into a mud pit. I kept thinking, It’s going to take your mother two hours to get that stain out of your britches!

Of course, he wasn’t concerned, and when he wasn’t rolling around in the dirt, he was rolling around in the leaves, throwing them up in the air, covering himself in fall foliage and dead grass. “I’m in the leaf pile!” he’d say. “You’re uncle is tired–let’s go inside,” I’d reply.

He kept looking at me like, “Tired? I don’t know the meaning of the word.”

I spent the day reading Mind Over Medicine by Lissa Rankin, M.D. I heard about the book two or three years ago while listening to a podcast and finally picked it up at the library earlier this week. I’m not done with it yet, but the book discusses the powerful role that the mind, healthy relationships, and a positive environment can play in healing. As a medical doctor, Lissa said she used to fret when her child hurt himself. But after doing a lot of research into the body and such things as spontaneous healing, she now teaches her son that his body is a powerful healer. What I love about this idea is that if he falls down and scrapes his knee, rather than freaking out and being afraid, he says, “My body knows how to fix itself.”

To be clear–because people worry about this kind of stuff–yes, if their child got cancer or were hit by a car, they wouldn’t say, “He’ll be fine on his own,” they’d rush him to the hospital. Still, even in a serious situation, the idea is the same–the body is smart. Given the right support, it knows how to restore balance. Perhaps children instinctively understand this. Maybe that’s why they pop right back up after they fall off their scooters, unless of course we adults scare them by flipping our shit. Oh my god, are you okay!

Earlier today while doing chi kung, even before reading the book, I gave myself a hug and told my body that I trusted it. I’ve still felt like crap all day, but I think this was and is an important step in healing. Personally, I know that I’ve spent a lot of time not trusting my body, believing that it didn’t know how to fix itself, or that no matter what I tried, it wouldn’t work. Plus, I’ve spent a lot of time not liking this about my body, not liking that about my body. And yet, my body has given me every experience I’ve ever had. (Think about that–and thank your body that you can.) And it doesn’t just let me sit at this keyboard or play with my nephew–it’s watching out for me. A couple days ago I wrote about some great feedback I got from my gut, and a lot of interesting things have been happening in meditation lately (crying, letting go, stuff like that). So I’m starting to believe that my body really is on my side–it wants me to be in healthy relationships, it wants me to let go, it wants me to heal.

Now I’m thinking, We’re BOTH doing the best we can.

Tonight’s blog is number 300. That’s 300 days or nights in a row of writing. When I started this project almost a year ago, I really thought it was just about writing, about developing a discipline and working on my craft, the one I want to spend the rest of my life doing (if God and my body will let me). But somewhere along the way I realized this project is about more than writing–way more. It’s about healing. Maybe that sounds like a funny thing to say when I’m once-again sitting here feeling poorly, but I’m talking about healing deep down, about finally loving every well and broken part of yourself, about finally taking care of yourself, about knowing, really knowing, that your life has a purpose and nothing can stand in the way of it. For me, this has happened–is happening–one word and one day at a time. For this change in perspective and direction, me and my body are more grateful than we could ever say.