we hold our bodies and our bodies hold us

 i was listening to my friend olivia's demo, "if you insist," where she sings:

when the shelves fell and i had to pick everything up

i told you i was a shelf and you just said handle this

i was a shelf and i was also myself

and i fused into one 

≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫

this idea of body-as-container has been floating around my mind lately. everything that has ever occurred to us is imprinted in our body some way or another. relentlessly, our minds conjure people and memories from our past that feel almost as real as the present. i think about how i hold them all. it is as if i have a little knapsack in which my old friends & lovers reside, and whether or not I care to open my bag and lay everything out, i am still burdened (or delighted) by the weight of it inside. 

olivia's shelf-self conjures up such a vivid image of how shelves often categorize each row into subject matter, a matter of association we tend towards ourshelves. the idea of the shelf also addresses presentation and perhaps performativity --placing your things to be both accessible and visible. shelves are not often private and their forwardfacingness invites passersby to inspect and reach out to touch. in less invasive ways, we are also public beings to certain extents. 

as i listened to olivia's sweet voice, i was reminded of a recent article i skimmed about queering archives, a queer/ed archival methodology: archival bodies as nomadic subjects, that touches on the notion of archive-as-body and body-as-archive. jamie ann lee begins their piece by providing an excerpt from alice's adventures in wonderland from when alice is speaking with the caterpillar about her disorientation from rapid bodily changes, likening this to the Caterpillar's own metamorphosis. Lee parallels this conversation with one between themself and poet, tc tolbert, about physically transitioning through taking testosterone. by holding both of these ideas, ann discusses how archives are equally entangled by the shift of societal and cultural change, much like our own bodies through time. by having these archives hold these bodies, the archive is holding the change that the bodies hold, resulting in a queering of both the archive and the body. 

the idea of archive-as-body and body-as-archive evidently go hand in hand but manifest themselves distinctly. archive-as-body personifies the archive away from the sterile graveyard that official archives portray themselves to be. rather, it allows archives to exist fluidly and act as living and breathing spaces of information, tenderly (i hope) creating space for past lives to be continually inserted into our present-day existence. body-as-archive is the aspect that most piques my interest. it is a reminder of how much we store within ourselves and carry on a day-to-day; a reminder, to me, that i contain multitudes from the multitudes i have lived, a reminder that reminiscing is not dwelling and being reminded of the past is not a signifier of not being present. 

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with the idea of body-as-archive and olivia-as-shelf, we are brought to the last piece and that is our bodies as altars. in my decolonial feminist indigenous ways of knowing class with the wonderful professor sandra pacheco, we had an altar-making session in which everyone and their cohorts brought a picture of someone who's passed who had shown them unconditional love, an item that represents a goal they have for themself, and an item that is associated with a fond memory. within each of our separate corners, we laid out textiles, our items, candles, and flowers. with cracked voices and tears in our eyes, my cohort took turns sharing what we brought. afterward, we conjoined by holding hands and we meditated on how special this class had been for us. 

my professor assigned a short essay she had written, the day after the election: protecting mind, body, and spirit. she walks through her ritual of self-protection after hearing that trump had been elected during that fateful 2016 november. her long huipil and tejana boots are the first elements of her dress to adorn her body. under her huipil, a red woven faja wraps around her waist to protect her vulnerable center, her ombligo. to carry with her the strength of the strongest woman she knows, a pendant with her grandmother, doña mague, sits at the nape of her neck. she chooses earrings that were gifted to her by her friend, an alcatraz occupation veteran, from when they occupied sogorea te. her huichol-beaded cuff bracelet with healing white flower motifs mirrors her silver bracelet made by a taos elder. the final element is her rebozo from chiapas, and she concludes, "my body will be my altar as i move in the world today."

 ༻❁༺ 

without much need for my inserted reflection on professor pacheco's intentionality, it is clear what one can take from her ritual. every day, consciously or not, we make decisions around which accessories reflect our emotions or which shoes fit the wash of our denim, and all of these become a barrier of protection as we move through the world. by making our body the altar, it holds what is most precious to us, archiving our fond memories, feelings of pride, and meaningful connections. our altar becomes our shelf becomes ourselves and we learn how we can hold our own bodies along with the rest of the world. 

i hope you can listen to olivia's song and think about how you show up in the world with everything you delicately carry. if your shelf falls over and you pick everything up maybe it is a moment of reflection upon what you have.