A woman's story of her journey, in her body, from adolescence to adulthood, through power, pleasure and pain.
Youth
In dreams, my body rides wild horses. With my arms around the neck of a great steed, I hang on with ease, and soon, thigh to flank, we canter, until my muscles become equine, my hair a mane in the wind. In dreams, I am Wildbody.
Wildbody fashions a bow and arrow from branches as sinewy as itself. It squats at a riverbank with flat bare feet and drinks water from cupped hands, surrounded by bird song. Wildbody runs like quicksilver across empty fields under moonlight. It chews on grass blades and takes in views, satisfied with the limitless reach of its potential. It can swing and jump and lift itself onto things; a lithe animal, perfectly made for the world. When I am Wildbody I feel like I am made of stardust; a part of everything, but content to be alone on this big old rock, pierced by lightyears. Wildbody is multitudes.
When I wake up from Wildbody’s adventures I find myself in this body, which cannot jump. Not high, anyway. It is soft and shakes when it reaches too high. It plods. I’m dissatisfied with the limits of its potential. Unlike Wildbody, this body is a prisoner of the world, not a creature of it. It must be all that gravity.
In this world, I learn my body is worthy of derision. People point at it. They pinch its soft bits. They make jokes about it to the whistling amusement of others. They call it names. Sticks and stones didn’t break Wildbody, but words crush my body, alarm it. I learn that my body is a site for other people’s opinions.
Only my mind is sinewy enough to turn corners. This body, satisfied only with comfort, ekes out long afternoons in tall grass and discovers it can daydream. There, with one leg crossed over the other, it watches clouds, fantasising about Wildbody, like pressing play on a familiar film, even if over the years the tape gets grainy.
Everything changes when my body starts to bleed. I wanted some of the wildness – but not this, not this tender bloating, this viscous fluid, this on-all-fours pain, not a body dragging itself across the floor, a slave to gravity. The last thing I wanted was to feel heavier. Why can’t I be like Wildbody? Now I have become Wildblood. Sometimes, I still dream of Wildbody – who has become so light, it’s a butterfly: paper thin.
Wildblood notices other bodies noticing her. She figures out how to put a tampon in, in front of a mirror, learns about openings in secret, feeling faint on the cold bathroom floor. There’s a smell to Wildblood. She doesn’t dream, she goes out at night – to bars and clubs and learns that dancing is twisting into shapes and ribboning herself. She dances, copying the other bodies around her. A simple act, which blazes shame on her cheeks, just as rivulets of blood leak through the too-light colours of her ridiculous clothes. For this is another thing Wildblood must learn, fashion.
One night, Wildblood is on a busy street, in a too-short skirt and boots with towering heels. Wildblood is a foal, stumbling in these monstrosities, trying not to trip on the dark pavement, like she is learning to walk. All Wildblood can feel is how this body doesn’t belong to her anymore. That the border between the world and her is up for grabs – a turf war, a bar brawl. People get so drunk around Wildblood they laugh like screaming hyenas. Wildblood drinks shots of tequila and jäger from hollow hands. She cannot distinguish between the masked faces in the crowd. The same face leering. A cloying, hot breath. The floor is sticky and Wildblood’s heels twist her ankles. Pop music is blaring. Shoulders are jostling. Wildblood’s going to be sick. Outside, vomit lands with a slop against an ATM screen. I don’t know why Wildblood chose to puke there. I guess she’s too busy blinking back swirling bits of concrete, and then the night stars, which look so bright when she’s rolled onto her back by unknown hands. If she sleeps now, will she be Wildbody, flying through trees in high-definition? As Wildblood’s eyes shut, something sharp and venomous slithers up her skirt, touches her in a place she’s never touched herself, even with all that mirror work. When it bites her it’s like a thick needle in a collapsed vein, it spreads poison, which moves through her and eventually cracks her heart. The ground is colder than her bathroom floor.
I learn that this body is a site of other people’s violence.
Wildblood wakes, dreamless. She is lying on a stranger’s cold floor, watching tectonic plates shift in pools of her vomit. Here, very quietly, she fashions a suit of armour from her own bony tissue, like an armadillo shield – a sinewy suit. Wildblood walks home fully armoured, fingers crossed behind her back for protection, like a jack-knife.
Love
I punish Wildblood. If she’s not going to fit, if she’s too slow and heavy, I’ll starve her into compliance, dominate her. Wildblood, hungry and submissive, is an eager servant; she upskills, she does tricks. She becomes Wildcard.
Wildcard is so talented; she could pull wool out of her own eyes. For example, Wildcard learns when to gently fire a woman’s cigarette – just before she pats her pocket, before she even knows she needs a light. Wildcard has no poker face, but she can listen, which she does, leaning against lampposts, smiling at girls. In moments like these, there’s a crack in the armour, and some light gets in. Wildcard hands herself out at dinner parties, and people get in touch. I learn that Wildcard keeps me safe – as long as we are dancing. Wildcard guides you by the small of your back, protects you from bumping into things. She can dip and cha-cha with a light touch. Wildcard cuts a rug. She rolls on carpets and kisses under sheets. She stretches and yawns. She touches infinity and when she gets touched in some places, she feels something like young Wildbody. Behind her eyes, I see galaxies.
When I am Wildcard, I learn that this body is a site of redemption.
Autonomy
Now, years later, I write to you from this body – the one named Quinn. I called them by their own name and, out of the blue, they came. It wasn’t a particular day, no special eureka moment. More like a gradual awakening from wilder days. Like when you recover from a fever, your legs over the side of the bed, feeling stronger each day – Quinn bloody-minded their way into view. A realisation dawned. Quinn has been there through it all, a familiar friend. Quinn’s mind is the same mind that fashioned tools and instruments, Quinn’s blood beats through the same heart that cracked, and the same places that bled. Just because I didn’t notice Quinn, doesn’t mean that they weren’t there.
Quinn sits on the edge of my bed and says, “Might as well accept me then.”
Quinn reaches out to me, an old friend. Quinn’s body is the best body – because of her hands. It is Quinn’s hands that have wiped the tears of grieving friends. Quinn’s hands who’ve typed words of devotion on countless pages and picked dogshit off pavements. Quinn’s hands who’ve hurt too much to learn guitar, Quinn’s hands wetted by each lover and dried under hand dryers in train stations. Quinn’s hands have been held by frightened children and soothed weary backs and cut themselves on knives when cooking for people they love. They’ve burned lighting candles on birthday cakes and shaken before speeches and shoved fingers down throats, as emergency measures. They’ve signed their own name in love letters and legal tender. Quinn’s hands have knocked on all those doors, for help, for guilt, for selfishness, for second chances, for one shot. Quinn’s hands have dabbed ointment on Wildbody’s grazes, and washed Wildblood’s menses out of sheets, and wrung themselves red pleading forgiveness for Wildcard’s mistakes.
I’ll grow old with Quinn and I’m rather looking forward to it. Wherever we are, we’ll be there as friends. Two old ducks watching the sunset – thinking of all the bodies we had once been.
Soon, the only thing sinewy about us will be our hands, clutching onto those we love, hopefully right up until the very end. These hands an extension of a wild heart.
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