the body is an animal that cannot lie

these last 622 days, I’ve lived in the countries of seven languages. and in the end, I realize that body language is the only language in which you cannot lie - nor can you retract what is said, un-say them, smooth or sculpt them over with more words. words are like smoke, while the body is solid. thus, body language is like a typewriter with no backspace. the body is an animal that cannot lie.

perhaps the most important thing is to speak my own body language with greater fluency. to listen to what my body tells me - before what my mind wants to override it with. and then - to read the body language of people around me - regardless of what their lips say. sometimes words refer to real things. but sometimes they don’t. or, what is real changes, like weather.

the body is an animal closest to truth, animals that know the scent of something, without reason or explanation — but it is also an animal which is easily distracted by its own hunger, by its own inertia. an animal that gives itself away, easily. it cannot hide.

in the depths of this language, there are expressions and micro-expressions, movement and stillness, bodily urges, body hunger, body addictions, body wants and needs, body repulsions. part of speaking this language is to be patient with a body which can slip, easily, into self-denial, or self-indulgence. I give my body what it wants and needs. I try my best to listen to what it tells me, even as I sit, these 622 days, in a bath of seven foreign tongues, trying to decipher the intentions of strangers. I start here, in me, as the only center I can hold.