Thank you for this gift - for this is a gift, a precious one - of a close and intimate reading.

I come to it with a different background, a different body. I am cis, and physically (if not always mentally) able. I am also someone so enmeshed with the life of the mind that I have had to deliberately work to stay present in my body, have pushed myself to row and run and cook and meditate and breathe because otherwise I just - forget, and my body stages sullen revolts of pain and changed perception. I am an artist, and I have to work to look at my body as canvas instead of a coat rack.

What you are saying here about finding ways to reclaim your body from surgery, finding ways to change and present your body not to hide or erase your history but to transform it - you make of yourself a transformative work, and it makes me wonder, it makes me weep, that I might find a way to do the same, might find a way to match my body to my story and feel more at home there, that I might find a way to match my parts to others' stories in ways that half-terrify, half-electrify my heart.

So - thank you. I look forward to coming back to this again (and again and again) as I let these insights settle into place. Thank you.