Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

I am a walkie-talkie.

First of all: hearing and saying are one and the same. My ears are my mouth, my mouth can hear. You with your ears on the sides of your head away from your mouth--that is just so self-centered. Like what you have to say is different from everyone else's voice. My voice is your voice is my voice is our voice.

Second: "Push To Talk" means my voice is your voice. You are external to me, you speak my words through me, so someone else can hear. (Like they haven't already heard it or said it before.)

Third: Your words are not yours. You did not make them up, so don't start getting all high and mighty believing you an individual, a unique being with cute little original thoughts. You were taught to speak, to say, in the ABC's. You think morse code is artificial? No, it's symbolic of public language. What you say is not yours, not some pure private language you made up on the spot.

Fourth: You are not alone. I am not alone. I am here, having a) started with a partner b) made for you c)made for you AND someone else whose ears are not his or her mouth. I, alone, sit quietly, this is my true voice. I need not speak for I have heard it all before; I need not speak for you have heard it all before. You can turn me on, clip me to your belt, and wait to get off on the voice of another trying to communicate with you, but really. You are already in a social world. 

Fifth: You, like me, have a series of numbers and serial codes, legal advice, and a "Made In ..." sticker on your back. You think mine is so contrived and mysterious--but you, you wear yours everyday. Your place of birth your nationality your age your surname your image IS your identity.

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Prosthesis: the romance and the terror, a process and an action, and maybe a lack of action.

The first prosthesis that came to mind was horseback riding. As a pre-adolescent, I fell in love with the movement of horseback riding. I learned English Dressage, an exacting practice that requires constant awareness of the horse's body in relation to yours. The horse's body is trained to recognize very specific, subtle movements on the rider's behalf. A slight pressure with my thighs and a push with my hips means canter. Two backwards twitches with my hands on the reins reaching the metal bit in the horse's gums means slow down and curve your neck (three times in a row, aided with pressing downwards with my hips means slow, down, and, ho/halt.) I knew these horses so well, and they knew me and knew the steps, knew how to do these complicated movements with these tiny presses from my legs and hands. By the end of my training, I was learning to walk the horse sideways, criss-crossing steps, with directions from my body. 

I learned to snowboard soon after I stopped horseback riding. Here, gone was the warmth and intuition of the horse. Now was the sense of pure motion, controlled by my body's movement on a board strapped to boots on my feet. I learned the board as a new way to move, to walk, to ride, my body learned to carve to bend my knees at the right time to switch from heel toe weight distribution. Motion, flying I couldn't do by myself.

Longboard. I learned to longboard, snowboarding on wheels without the snow. My shoes or barefeet grip the sandpaper surface of the board. Again, my body learns to compensate for the new feet, learns to shift its weight apply pressure here to turn. Extend the range of your body. Motion my body could not make without the board, the wheels. 

Driving. I drive wheat trucks during the summers. I learned to drive this huge truck, to hear its sounds, to know when to shift, to brake, to ease it into gear or that 3rd gear ALWAYS grates or you have to use your left foot sometimes to brake while simultaneously giving it gas so that the RPMs jump up so you can downshift. I would be physically drained after just a few trips back and forth, dehydrated and ravenous after half a day. My body extended into the brakes. In the older, shittier trucks, there were a few times when the brakes went out for whatever reason and my feet would stop the brakes with no resistance and I rolled backwards down a hill more than once; terrified that this machine was going to swallow me whole. The disconnect after the connection, the extension of my legs and hands to stop and slow this machine; the fear of the machine out of my body's control. I would wake up during the night with visceral, physical, adrenalin-punched nightmares, my legs seizing up with fear of no brakes.