Born of Water: A Life Returning Home.

They say the body knows before the mind does.

They say that it all happens before birth.

In the water between the softness of skin and the heartbeat of sustenance.

Maybe sooner still.

Primordial in its certainty.

In the beginning, there is warmth and rhythm. A darkness that cups like hands. Gentle. Forgiving as it moulds the edges of the body. Sound is muted. A vibration without meaning. A low, gentle hum. A comfort. It doesn’t matter that there are no words to press into, no language to define or praise or condemn.

Nothing here is wrong or right. There are no instructions. No corrections. No eyes to see. But there are fingernails that feel and tiny hands that feel, skin on skin.

And so too the body moves, just because it can. Reason does not hold in the gravity here. Limbs drift without purpose. There is no right way to float. No wrong way to exist. The heart beats, and it is met with the lulling throb of another. It is the kind of silence we spend our whole lives trying to find.

It is enough. You are enough.

—

The first light is stark. Cutting. Then air without liquid. And new hands. Unfamiliar and plastic. Assured. They already know what to do. The body is lifted, turned, examined. A pause. A small shift in grip. A glance exchanged over the body, not at it.

There is a nod. Something scribbled down on a clipboard.

The rhythm from before is gone. Thoughts are not words. Ideas are not blood. And there is noise. So much noise. Sharp and incessant. Broken pitch. Stolen notes. This place has corners and edges that bite. Not like before. Not like before at all.

The floating is over.

It already feels like a loss. But not one you can explain.

Not really.

And so, you cry. Loud and louder still.

They place you on a breast.

No.

Like this. Not that.

—

Later, a nurturing hand moves the arm back down. The body had lifted it just to test the space. To feel air not water. She returns it to the side, her mouth cooing softly, she presses lightly, holds it there for just enough time to be intentional.

The body learns the space it must occupy. It learns that stillness is rewarded. That certain shapes are easier to hold.

The body begins to choose them.

Like this.

Not that.

—

Later still. Clothes.

Fabric that clings, or hangs, or pulls. Or itches or stings. Or softens the blow. Each piece a suggestion before it is an expectation.

And there are colours that mean things they do not own.

And skirts.

Or trousers.

The body notices what brings silence. And what brings smiles.

It learns to reach for approval.

Like this.

Not that.

The body begins to know.

—

Clothes. The body knows, but the silence is deafening.

Wrong. It is wrong. The weft and the weave sit burning a hole in confidence gained.

A waistband that cuts through skin.

The perfect fit.

But in the wrongness, delicate nerves connect, while the rest of the world seems to have figured out something you cannot grasp.

You wonder if the water and warmth did not carve deep enough fingerprints for you to hold on to.

Anything.

So you hold on to everything.

All the while people tell you.

No.

Not like that.

Like this.

But your body tells you no.

___

Confidence gained in bows or button downs stripped by wrongness.

Your body knows who you are.

It is okay to change, to be what I have been guiding you towards since that first great loss.

Of warmth and water.

You still miss the water.

You still miss your smallness.

Your arms still rise when you try to learn about the world, but you put them down now. You become smaller.

Your body tells you

No.

Not like that.

Like this.

---

Disconnect is second nature, as your body removes your head from the equation.

These are not choices, though the rest of the world treats them as such.

Touch-starved and empty, you reach out to ways that have made you feel whole before.

They no longer fill the gaps, and those gaps are getting larger the longer you ignore what the body says.

The body keeps reminding you.

You are right. You feel wrong because you are ignoring the rightness.

But your head has been disconnected, so the rest of you does not get the signal.

You can hear the echo of your body begging.

No.

Not like this.

Please.

Not like this.

Like that.

---

And sometimes when you are alone and think of the water. You drown yourself in it. An umbilical rag made of fabric memories. You hold it in sacred moments alone. Only when the walls crash like waves into your body and you can’t remember yourself.

Freedom comes with sacrifice.

Pain.

But your hands rise instinctively, feeling for air.

This time you let them. Spaces between fingers filling with air. And you breathe inward, bringing life to your lungs.

No.

No.

Not like this.

On even rarer times that hand finds another. One that has been just as out of place. You will wrap yourselves in each other as solace, protection, and rhythm.

You will paint circles on their heartbeat while learning to breathe on your own.

You will nourish pieces of yourselves long abandoned.

Expand what is yours.

Your body remembers. Our bodies forget.

Yes.

Exactly like that.