The Body That Will Not Stay Still
When stillness is demanded from a nervous system that learned to stay ready.
Trey Robinson
Stillness was never a neutral request. It was a test.
A body that learned to stay ready does not experience a quiet chair as rest. It experiences it as exposure. The room calls that restlessness. The body calls it survival that never received an all-clear.
I could sit. I could even look like I was sitting well. What I could not do was convince the machinery underneath to believe the danger had passed.
The demand was never really for a still body. It was for a still story.