Affirmation

6:30 am in mid-September means dawn is grey-black, sluggish like my body. Yesterday a friend 12 years older than I commiserated over email about how our limbs cling to weight as we age.
What is it that makes it hard to let go?

I think about this when I pull clumps of hair out the drain, wrap strands gathered off the floor around my fingers, a few grays mixed in now. I was born with a single gray hair -- a sign of great intelligence, or that my mother loves me deeply. Or just the obvious, that our bodies were never perfect. The rest of this mane was once a source of pride, my connection to Jo March and writerly ambitions and independent womanhood growing up. Now I ignore the grays on the floor and my scalp. They're part of what remains -- and the loss of each strand, black or gray, is muted yet present.

I think about this as I step into my daughter's room. She refuses to sleep there, so we moved her bed into ours. This room with its pink pom-poms on the ceiling, stacks of toys and books on the walls is mine for now. The cotton-ball bunny she made at daycare for Easter is still clipped on a string, googly eyes watching my neck, arms, legs, creak through these morning stretches.

It's easier than usual to focus today, though harder than it used to be. I think about what to pack for her lunch. Bring my attention back to the crick in my neck when I lean. I didn't realize my right calf was tight. The left hip pain I thought was gone is still here, pushing through when I dip into the first bend of the day. I face the east, the sky lightens. The neighbor's tree blocks their view of me. I wonder if they planted it for this privacy. I wonder if the girl who grew up in this room leaned out this window at night and watched the moon.

Bring my attention back. Lift my feet against the wall, invert into a shoulder stand. I've never felt my shoulders shake like this before. I cannot do another inversion. What am I afraid of? There is no one to see me fall, a carpet to soften the landing. But heart and body refuse to release something, and today is not my day to float on my fingers.

What is my intention here? Yoga instructors love affirmations. But my mind is on full moons and little girls and Friday the 13th and remembering how my 70-year-old father lifts his hips effortlessly into a shoulder stand and once-upon-a-time-dances and no, I cannot find a positive thought to focus on.

There is only this. This racing breath in a lightening room and this body that bends. Creaking, fearful, but still moving. And for today, this is affirmation enough. That my limbs and lungs still move air, and over and over with each movement we make breath, and making breath is making life.
And if life itself can be made anew each instant, what is there to hold on to? What is it we fear to let go?