What is a body?

I have been in an editing cycle today—trying to work out how to introduce a chapter of my book called “Body”. I have been writing and erasing, copying and pasting, rearranging. I have been reading out loud and smoking and drinking too much coffee, and petting the dog, and yet, I am no closer to a satisfactory introduction.

The rest of the chapter is fine. I don’t need to do much in terms of the analysis, perhaps some threading—what does threading actually mean, you ask? IDK, friend. I don’t know. But I’m supposed to be doing it. The rest of the chapter is fine-ish, and I took it upon myself to try to fine tune the opening paragraphs, and I have been trying to say what the Indigenous body is and why we are always naked in settler eyes.

How do I say this? How do I say that the body is not a body except when it is in relation? How do I say that when the body is studied by settlers, when it is scrutinized and photographed and measured and placed in a vitrine for people to look at, that means it is naked, even if it is clothed.

How do I say that the body of the Indian is never not naked in the eyes of a setter because we can only ever be available to them. We cannot be clothed, for to be clothed is to be civilized. And to be civilized is anathema to the reality of Indigenous life under settler colonialism. How do I say that to be an NDN is to be naked and exposed to view, settler eyes, settler fantasies. Always.

What is a body? I’m supposed to be writing this somewhere, but instead of trying—for the fifth hour—to make the words fit where they are not yet fitting, I opened up this thing and made my fingers type. Hopefully this little break will allow me to get back to the writing, but maybe not. Maybe all I need to say is what I have already said, and it’s fine. Maybe.