Habibi, you should stretch

“It’s been a long time. Sorry it took so long.” - From my year long conversation with Miho.

There’s really only one thing life teaches you
And that is: The importance of stretching.
Stretching is the most valuable skill you can learn
Because it makes you more elastic
And that is what growing up is all about.

Our dance was a slow one that day:
You moved your stare and looked away
I bent my head to the side then let it drop
You looked down and fiddled with the headphone wires
I know you’re going to buy the wireless ones
And I wonder
Where will your fingers go then
I look at my head in the small rectangle
In the bottom left of the screen
And I wonder
Where my head will drop now
That you’re away

First, learn to stretch your body

Lie in your bed and grab your big toes with your hands
Do it everyday until your legs can stretch to be completely straight
It’s going to hurt at first
Like most important things
But it gets easier with time

Elasticity is a fascinating property
When I say “elastic”, your mind thinks:
Gum, jelly, sludge, elastic man from the fantastic four, or five…
And elastic objects are endowed with a couple of properties in your mind:

1. They’re virtually invincible. In Pixar’s “The Incredibles”, Mrs. Incredible is impossible to scathe. There is no bullet, physical attack or fall that can hurt her. She will bend, slip or bounce her way out of any difficulty. There is a malleability to elastic entities that makes one feel they’ve transcended the physicality of other objects.
2. They are whole. Though they’ll stretch infinitely and bend to your or theirs heart desire, elastic objects stay whole. That they can both morph into all forms and yet still be one is testament to their power.
3. They make you feel safe. Somehow it’s hard to imagine getting hurt by, or in the presence of, something elastic.If you fall in it, it will absorb the fullness of your weight and act as a buffer to gravity. If you trip off a cliff, it will reach out to your arm and go the full length of your fall, like a bungee rope, to make sure you land safely or never touch the ground.

Our dance was a slow one that day:
You moved and smiled and swayed
I jumped and leaned your way
While the liveliest singer
In the liveliest bar
In a lively Jakarta
Rocked his best tunes
To the crazies and loons
While in the midst of the rumble
We carved a space to mumble
How much fun we’re having together

Second, learn to stretch your heart

My bio on Tinder used to say “working on widening my heart”
It doesn’t mean I want to be with 100 partners and love them all
It doesn’t mean I’ll be saying yes to people I usually wouldn’t date
It doesn’t mean I’m going on a romantic safari
To push the frontiers of my love and my lust.
Widening my heart means I’m building a room
Where you can come and sit and have tea.
And breathe.
To the full capacity of your lungs
Then look out the window for a good while.
And when you feel like it
Stand up and leave.
Widening my heart means I’m stretching. It means I’m growing more elastic.
That my arms are walls that keep us safe
And my chest is a welcoming floor.
That my eyes are the window to this vibrant world
It means we can fall here
And that the room will absorb the fullness of our weight
The full space of our personal universe.
That we can voice our toughest stories
And hold each other's gaze
And ask how we feel now
Because I know you know I know
That sometimes the depth of our wounds
Is the width of our souls.
That they’ve helped us stretch.

Our dance was a slow one that day:
You moved your wrist like a dancer
I moved mine like a wrestler
Then suggested we use the blender
To make matcha tea
You said your teacher would kill us
And I suggested she’d even make it look like suicide
And we laughed
Because the blender tea wasn’t that bad

Third, learn to stretch your soul

This poem itself is a stretching exercise
I usually write in bursts
10 line sentences I push out
Then string together
This poem is different
It’s a single long dough I stretch with the bottom of my palms
It’s a shoulder blade I lean into with my forearm to massage
It’s a neck muscle I relax with my thumb.
Slowly and firmly.
It’s your leg. With your hand holding your toe.
Long and straight
With the light fleshing its colour out right before we go to sleep
I try to do the same
And my knees are so bent
An onlooker would think I’m not even trying
You look at me, giggle and say
“Habibi, you should stretch”
I will habibi. I’m getting started.