I woke this morning, like most mornings of late, to my newborn son’s beckoning for a diaper change and feeding. My pets stirred like leaves in the wake of passing vehicles, circling my feet, also wanting food and affection, opened doors for AM adventures in the rising sun. The birds outside sang to gain territory, the earliestexuberance claiming stakes to shares of worms, but also calling house-cats to challenge that hard-earned right.

When I entered the bathroom to get ready for the day ahead, my cat, Shrimp,hollered for acknowledgement. My dog, Gingo, thwapped her tail and curled her body like koi in pond at feeding time. I leaned down to quell their rebellion aimed to break the previous night’s stillness. But, something was different.

Years of cumulative stress had taught me to bend my knees, even when not lifting heavy objects. Just to greet my animal friends, to pat their heads and gesture good greetings, I needed to heed lower back pain. Not today. Returning upright from hands on fuzzy ears below, I noticed precisely nothing. The twinge of unchecked movement, to which I’d grown accustomed, never tightened it's grip. The cat still crooned for water fresh in his bowl. The dog’s tail still threatened to re-awaken our just-fed and fully satisfied son by drumming back-and- forth between walls and cabinet doors.

But, the pain in the hinge above my tailbone no longer spoke.

I leaned again, just in case I’d missed its all-too- familiar protestations. Nope. Nothing. At that point I remembered… What it was to not fear movement. What it had felt like before so many traumas. Just like the sun’s rise after evening’s occlusion, light revealed no longer hidden. I remembered what it was like to feel light, unburdened by the density of past injuries’ propensities to stay stuck in webs of fascia wound around joints meant to bend.

One session of Rolfing with Leah McKellop the day before... That made all the difference.