Morning Flow

By Deirdre Heavey, Spring 2021

Standing tall with a flat back; my head is forward and my chin up. I extend my swayed back down so my belly button graces the front of my knees. I take my dog for a walk, bending my right and left legs consecutively. My hands lie flat on the earth’s surface–well, the foamy Lululemon yoga mat that I spent way too much money on. 

I reverse swan dive upwards, breathing in a deep inhale that exhilarates my body all the way down to my toes. The air in my lungs pours loudly out of my mouth as the palms of my hands meet in the center of my chest for prayer position. 

The force of gravity pushes down on my shoulders and back up through the tips of my toes as I swan dive downward. Just like my mom, my second toe is longer than my first on both feet–creating a webbed effect. A woman at the nail salon once told her that this “Morton’s Toe” is representative of dominance in romantic relationships–10 4.

I feel connected and calm, perfectly aware of every inch of my body from the sharp hairs on my legs to the tight ponytail–hardly supporting my short, thick brown hair with a large pink cheetah print scrunchie–which sits messily on the top of my head. 

Slowly, my head moves counter-clockwise around my neck as my ponytail swifts and sways. The motion elicits sudden nostalgia. I close my eyes, and for a moment–just a moment–I’m back on the soccer field, still drunk from the night before dribbling circles around subpar full-backs and scoring a hattrick on a Sunday. The smell of a Strawberita exudes with sweat from my pores as I take a whiff of the freshly watered and mowed grass. 

I recall the burden of my long, thick hair which weighed heavily down to my boobs the entirety of my adolescence. My heart rate picks up as my Apple watch rattles my wrist, reminding me to breathe.

“Even 1 minute of breath a day can reduce stress.”

I inhale deeply through the congestion of my non-existent nose–coined “Voldemort” in Grammar school for its lack of cartilage or structure–to the vibration on my left wrist. My thick-framed Warby Parker tortoiseshell glasses rest on the fading scar on the right side of my button nose. A shock wave shoots through my body as I envision the man on the bike heading straight for my face. One minute I’m in Eugene, Oregon, trying to dodge the bike with all of my might. The next moment, Jerry drops a large wooden baseball bat on Tom’s head through an old CRT set. Tom doesn’t move a flinch as the audience is left questioning his inability to move. 

I focus on my calloused feet, which push into my foam Lululemon yoga mat, rather than the agonizing pit of anxiety in my stomach that spreads with each recollection. My feet measure the distance between the jock and the writer. My ankles–once accustomed to twisting and rolling through disheveled soccer fields–now better equipped for walking over European cobblestones in platformed Mary Janes. 

Like a bad habit, one last image of my long brown hair creeps into the forefront of my consciousness. The Snapchat story from the Murphy’s bathroom plays in my head like a nightmare. My long brown hair, dilapidated from the peak of my Georgia Peach Sky Vodka blackout, hangs desperately over my eyes like a drunk Debbie Thornberry as I struggle to zip my American Eagle skinny jeans. 

I run my fingers through my thick, now short hair. The pit in my stomach starts to fill with gratitude. The weight is somehow lifted knowing what I have cut off–the 10+ inches of hair, the shitty one-night stands, the friends who encouraged it all, the coaches who didn’t say a word, and the normalization of this depressive behavior. I run my fingers through my short hair, slowly and lovingly with respect and appreciation for its lightness. 

Loretta, my hairdresser for the past 10 years, is suddenly the only person I can see. The photo–about 20,000 photos back in my Camera Roll–reproduces in the forefront of my mind. We smile big goofy I’msohappyyou’rehappy types of smiles. Loretta, with her short black bangs hanging over her eyes and a Harley Davidson apron covering her white t-shirt, holds up the rat's tail that once weighed me down. Smiling then, smiling now, there are few moments as transcendent as this one. 

\Rubbing my right thumb over my middle finger, I smile at the bulbous writing callous directly below my cuticle; the one that comes from years of writing down the things I couldn’t say and confronting the thoughts I couldn’t comprehend.

My left wrist stops vibrating as I open my eyes and look out my well-lit window onto the busy streets below 238th Street. Slowly–one vertebra at a time–I reverse swan dive upward once more. Standing tall with a flat back; my head is forward and my chin up. I thank my body for serving me in my practice today and propelling me forward every other day. Running my fingers through my short, thick brown hair, I’m at ease with my liberation. Smiling, I thank my “Morton’s Toe” on my calloused feet, my scarred Voldemort nose, my clumsy ankles, my thick brown hair, and my writing callous. There is no longer a pit in my stomach nor pervasive thoughts in my head–just me and my beautifully imperfect body at peace for the day ahead.