Here, There, and Everywhere: Inside the Mind of a Yalie
People have a lot to say about positions. “I’m in no position to judge,” usually followed by a judgment. “You’ve put me in a difficult position,” usually followed by an argument. There are positions to apply for, positions to defend, positions you should probably stretch before attempting. Ballet has five. Sex has more.
Between the beginning and the end of our lives, we spend a considerable amount of time positioning ourselves. But we all have a default. It’s the one we came with.
Allow me to walk you through it. Choose a side, and lie down on it. I usually go right. Bend your knees and bring them toward your chest. Hands together in prayer mode, or arms wrapped around yourself. Tuck your head in a little. The fetal position. An absolute classic.
I have found myself here aching from cramps, one hand pressed to my stomach as though I could hold something in place. Shift a little. Tighten. Loosen again. I am bargaining with an organ through posture, and losing. I find it rude that my own uterus makes me wish I were back in my mother’s.
I have been here crying into a pillow, with no interest in sitting up to explain myself and face reality. Sometimes I know exactly what I should do next and cannot persuade myself to move. I pull my legs in a little closer. That, at least, I can manage.
I have ended up here laughing so hard my abs ache. Doubled over, out of breath, tears running down my cheeks. Physically incapable of finding the situation any funnier.
For creatures with so many feelings, we have a remarkably limited repertoire. Different reasons, same position.
An entire Twin XL available, and I occupy one corner of it. Same amount of me, considerably less sprawl. I couldn’t tell you where the soul is supposed to sit. Mine seems to glow from somewhere between my lungs, my stomach and my heart. I curl around it the way hands cup a flame. After a day spent thinking about things that already happened and things that might never happen, I like being able to feel where I actually am.
But fetal positions go beyond me hugging my own body. They are anything I can curl into. My mom’s voice on the phone. A coffee shop at home already knowing my order. My friends’ voice messages, long enough to qualify as podcasts. My favorite pillow, an episode of Gilmore Girls, an Enid Blyton book. My journal. Jo Malone English Pear & Freesia on my skin. Sand on my feet after a long winter. The smell of the air when I step out of Athens airport. They all do what the position does. Warm, familiar, nothing asked of me. Somewhere I already know how to be.
Lying like this is an easy default to go back to, and a harmless one. But I think we all fall into other defaults the same way. Stereotypes. Old opinions. They are easy and comfortable and warm, and that is why we stay in them.
My body, at least, tells me when I have stayed too long. My legs go numb. My arm falls asleep. An opinion doesn’t do that. I can carry one for years without asking whether it still fits.
The original fetal position, though, involved quite a lot of change. We were growing the whole time. There were limbs to lengthen, fingers to form, an entire person to become. From the outside, it might look like staying put in the same small space. Inside, everything was happening. The place that kept us safe was also getting us ready to leave it.
Eventually, we were born.
I want to feel safe enough to change. To reread a page of my journal and see something I couldn’t see when I wrote it. To ask again what I believe about God, or love, or what makes a life good, and leave room for a different answer. To let the energy shift between me and someone I have known for a long time. To come back to somewhere familiar without having to squeeze myself into whoever I was the last time I was there.
For now, I like having a few hours to curl around myself. My cheek against my hand. My stomach rising and falling. A pulse, if I stay still enough. It is humbling, being this easy to fold. All these opinions, all these plans, a whole life, and it fits between two arms.
In the morning, I will have to unfold. In the morning, I will be born again.