Sublime

When I was twenty-five, I thought I’d never have to look at this version of my face. I had romantic notions of dying in action before wrinkles ever set in, but here I am, looking every bit my forty-two years of age. Living hard doesn’t mean dying early; sometimes it just means those hard years end up on your face.

It’s the most remarkable and unremarkable thing in the world: a body plus its many things, plus any number of augmentations, from the most elemental to the most mechanically complex.

The human body is more spectacular and intricate than anything else in the world. But we almost never notice it.

Under the torn shirt you could just make out a ragged disc of meat from where, just this morning, an arm had brushed teeth and made coffee.

To produce breast milk, mothers melt their own body fat. Are you with me? We dissolve parts of ourselves, starting with gluteal-femoral fat, a.k.a. our butts and thighs, and turn it into food for our babies.

Every single thing our bodies do requires movement—initiated by our musculoskeletal system—to be performed with ease. Digestion, immunity, reproduction—all of these functions require us to move. You can eat the perfect diet, sleep eight hours a night, and use only baking soda and vinegar to clean your house, but without the loads created by natural