" The tears you are crying are real, or real enough, though the tears you cry at an AT&T commercial are also real. This renactment of the trauma is perhaps the opposite of finding a way to embody the trauma, which might be another way of saying to integrate the experience into your everyday life, so that it no longer pulls the strings, makes you dance. But to embody, one must have a body. For many years, I'd borrow someone else's body, put myself inside her, if only for a few minutes, or a few nights, until I could find, or find a way to enter, my own.
The thing about damage is that if you can lead someone right to it, like a sleeping bear, point to it, say, "Shhhh, don't wake him," then it likely is already toothless. At least for the winter months. Come spring everyone is damaged all over again, whether they talk about it or not. It's just the world waking up. It's the sap running through the trees, it's the ice starting to thaw. Whatever damage has been sleeping is now awake, once more. True damage is not merely a reenactment of past turmoil, but part of nature, part of our cellular structure. That's why it's a good idea not to imagine you can contain it in one place and neatly chop it out. That's why it's a good idea to stretch each morning, if just to be aware of where in your body the damage is lurking today"
--Nick Flynn
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