August 26: Pebbles in Water, Amazing Creation, Cellular Level

109.  Over time my injured friend's feet have become blue and smooth from disuse.  Their blue is the blue of skim milk, their smoothness that of a baby's.  I think they look and feel very strange and beautiful.  She does not agree.  How could she--this is her body; its transformation, her grief.  Often we examine parts of her body together, as if their paralysis had rendered them objects of inquiry independent of us both.  But they are still hers.  No matter what happens to our bodies in our lifetimes, no matter if they become like "pebbles in water," they remain ours; us, theirs.
                         ----from Bluets by Maggie Nelson

It's always unnerving when your body, or a loved one's body, becomes something you don't recognize.  Suddenly, you lose control of a hand or eye.  Your wife sleeps all day when she used to work nine hours and go for five mile runs at night.  You used to be able to sit for three or four hours, writing poems, and now you can barely concentrate for ten minutes at a time.  Your loving son attacks other kids with scissors.  Your father uses his cane like a mace in Game of Thrones.

I have been a diabetic since I was thirteen, and I am lucky.  I've had no problems with my eyes or kidneys.  I can still feel the bottoms of my feet.  My two brothers ignored their diabetes.  One of them opted to buy cartons of cigarettes instead of insulin.  The other thought he couldn't afford his diabetic medication and went for years with blood sugars above 500.  The former suffered a stroke and eventually died.  The second is on disability and probably needs a heart transplant.

The human body is an amazing creation.  When my kids were infants, I remember sitting in a chair, holding them as they slept.  Watching them breathe and twitch.  Imagining all the changes that were taking place inside of them on the cellular level.  Brain synapses sparking and forming.  Bones and nerves stretching and growing.  Even today--my daughter is 16, and my son is eight--I something look at them and wonder at the span of their legs, loam of their eyes, water of their laughter.

Saint Marty is so thankful for his healthy, if somewhat tired, body.