Part wonderer, part wanderer.

How to shape our lives? It's in showing up.

Showing Up film poster

Shaping

To shape is to give a particular form or shape to, according to Webster. To modify. To determine or direct the course or character of.

How do we go about shaping our lives? Which areas do we choose to actively shape and which ones do we put on auto-pilot or which ones we neglect?

These questions have been top of mind as I started a new fitness journey in mid-March, after hiring a virtual personal trainer, via the Future app.

Out of all the areas of my life – money, home environment, career, love life, personal growth, friendships, and health – it's the last one I've often neglected.

I've never had the body I wished for. Part of it is that I didn't want it bad enough. I am happy enough with my body as it is. It functions well, allows me to be active, play tennis weekly. I feel attractive and haven't struggled to attract lovers. What more do I need my body to be?

Despite my overall okay-ness about my body, there's been a nagging question that kept popping into my consciousness — What is possible for my body?

There are so many reasons why I haven't pursued a body-centric transformation. Part of me thinks, well, I have Midwestern genes, with a tendency toward packing on the pounds, and that is that. A little pudge never hurt anyone, plus I work from home and often wear sweatpants.

Another part centers around gay culture. I've never seen myself as “that gay” who is super fit. That's always felt like the domain for, well, other gays. The gays who were born with the fit-as-hell genes.

Exploring this with my therapist recently, there are also hints of whether or not I deserve a “fit” body. That's one of the darker reasons I uncovered. Also, what makes me so unique that the body I desire is out of reach?

Showing up

Director Kelly Reichardt's newest feature film (via A24), Showing Up, stars Michelle Williams and Hong Chau, as artists in their own right. The film shows the utterly non-fantastical aspect of making art. Sitting in front of your creation, tinkering away. Shaping. Making a little change here, observing, then making another change so the mind's vision meets reality.

That film hit me in a powerful way because so often in pop culture, artistry and being a creator comes packaged as this flashy, sexy, romantic way of life. Whether it's the pulsating visuals of TikTok creators or heavily-produced videos on YouTube, the picture we're so often sold of the creative life is that it's this high-energy, heart-racing endeavor.

In reality, in art or any area of life that we shape, creative moments are usually mundane and quiet. There's no applauding audience or fans cheering you on as you make.

Even now, as I write this post, I'm sitting in my bed, blankets over most of my body. All I hear is the click-clacking of the steel heater in the corner on my apartment and the occasional car zoom by on the street below. My cat, Liza, cozy and curled, sleeps at my feet, without a care in the world.

There's no fanfare. It's me, my computer, and the words flowing from the ether out the tips of my fingers.

The commonplace nature of showing up is laced with simplicity and yet backed with incredible force.

It's in the moments we show up for ourselves...that is where the shaping happens. It's not in the thinking about when or how we show up. It's the very present moment where we command our body, canvas, or life to be other than it is now.

Showing up is telling ourselves, “I am here with you”. I can't think of many things more beautiful and touching than this.▪️