Dry bones, desert heat, beating sun. I am a sensual woman. I need to feel life, not just live it. Often at the expense of being burned, but felt nonetheless.
I thrive in the pain of the desert: my burning skin, my parched mouth, my aching muscles from seemingly endless endurance. As if by shining a light into the deepest parts of myself, for long enough, at a hot enough temperature, I might stumble upon a virgin well of water, not yet tainted by life, abundant enough to quench even the driest of veins.
Like a flash flood, an oasis, a cactus flower. Had I not ventured out there, had I not stuck it out, I would have missed it. And the tragedy of missing it, I believe, is more disabling than the burn itself.
I miss running. Not just my routine five milers through the neighborhood but those long runs that force my body to rely on all its parts. I feel my legs during a five mile run, but during a twenty miler I feel my lips, my ears, my fingertips, my baby toe, my breasts, the inside fleshy bit of my right arm that rubs along my shirt. And I know that I am alive, because I feel it all. I feel it all.
Childbirth is like that. Peel back the layers of earth and water and at the core is the heat of the fire, propelling waves that make the eyes roll backward and the toes curl inward. A burning, an intensity so overwhelming that it transcends the physical body, calling in the strength of the human spirit, the human will, to ride each wave.
The purest form of an oasis in the desert is the love that shows up in the delivery room. Among the cries, the blood, the burning and pain, there is Love: a virgin well of water, not yet tainted by life, abundant enough to quench even the driest of veins.
