Ode to Priscilla Macintosh | Priscilla, I am writing to you.

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Priscilla, I am writing to you.

Is it the first time? Or do our shared whatsapp texts and long voicememos also count as writing? Either way, I am addressing you. I am now sitting on a desk chair not adjusted to me in a cold warehouse in West. A new writing location, perhaps. In recent months, I've been thinking a lot about bodies. Even now, about how my shoulders don't touch the back of the chair. And whether they should? The thought that follows is that it is good that I am aware of my shoulders. Of what resides in them: lightness.

Now that I am experiencing that relaxedness you so often talked about before, I know it can be different. Lately, I've been thinking about the many years I ignored my body, as a necessity. Last winter - it had to come sometime - my body gave clear signals. A nagging shoulder, tension in my stomach, persistent sore throat. What I did? Carry on, of course.

I sit hunched over. The chair seemed to want to move away from me.

Before I knew it, you had noticed that my voice sounded increasingly husky. Chatting with companions turned into staring at irregularities in walls.

You could also have asked me how tired I was. Of having to live a life at my best. Not only in spaces where I had to relate to others, but also at home where I pour tea for just me.

Instead, you invited me to visit you. In your cosy home, I was allowed to stretch out on the sofa. I was allowed to pet cuddly Izzy and she could look at me softer for a few moments with her black eyes. You would cook and I could choose what, though vegan. I don't know if you have always been friends with nature and your body. But for as long as I have known you, you have been speaking to yourself in a gentle tone. I also got to enjoy that energy that night at your house.

Instead of reprimanding or questioning me, you asked me to participate in the mindfulness course you organised. Nice that you do that, I think you help many people with it, but I am not made for that kind of thing I told you.

Still, at some point I decided to join, because how much harm could it do and that way I supported you as a friend. As you guided the participants during a visualisation exercise, I kept my eyes tightly open. I hoped you hadn't noticed how I was doing the exercise wrong.

But you had seen it. Two years later, over lunch, you told me about it. You told me I had done nothing wrong because the exercise was not about right or wrong and you said I appeared restless. I had just shared with you how locked my body was. How my head still wanted to function, but my limbs were tense. By focusing my attention on the fluff on your reddish-brown locs, I didn't have to feel the loadedness of my words. You smiled. A brave tear decided to leave my eye anyway.

I try to adjust the position of the chair's back. But the damn thing doesn't cooperate. A clear sign not to return to this place.

Priscilla, I don't know if it came across during our lunch how much I admire you. That's why I'm writing to you. You have the valuable ability to notice another in silence. Even, or maybe especially, when the other person cannot or does not yet appreciate himself. Value not as the sum of productivity, but the intrinsic significance we humans all have. Simply because we exist. Seeing that doesn't only happen to those close to you, but for more than a decade now to a wider group in the cultural sector. I hope more people see an example in how you not only put others in the light, but also appear to yourself with compassion.

Love, Babeth