Showing Spine

Spine comes either from the Latin or Old French words for "thorn," "prickle," or, yes, "spine." Botanically speaking, it is, "[a] stiff, sharp-pointed process produced or growing from the wood of a plant, consisting of a hardened or irregularly developed branch, petiole, stipule, or other part; a thorn; a similar process developed on fruits or leaves." Anatomically, it is, "[o]ne or other of several sharp-pointed slender processes of various bones." Eventually, the dictionary slides down to "any natural formation having a slender sharp-pointed form" (OED: subscription only).

Huh. Before you get to the definition or, more accurately, the list of usages for the word for the backbone of vertebrates, the dictionary descriptions stress not the rigidity of the backbone itself -- though rigidizing and stabilizing are some of what a backbone does -- but the relationship between the outgrowths, the thorny processes, and the word itself. I'm caught here. Intrigued.

I know a spine has those outgrowths -- they are there in all of the pictures of spine; I can feel them on my back. It's not that I try to wish or will them out of existence, but I always think of the spine as a series of napkin rings into which your spinal cord is stuffed. The spiky bits seem present, but not central -- most certainly not definitional. This focus changes how I think of commonplaces that require one to "show spine" or dance instructions about "centering the spine." In the case of the former, I think the request is to suck it up in some way or at least show no weakness. Conform, comply. That's what I hear.

What if showing spine meant doing a hedgehog -- prickling up, showing my spines, defending myself with thorns? I wonder what then?

In the OED description, processes is used to describe the outgrowths. They aren't processes in the usual sense of a measured, deliberate set of happenings performed in a sequence -- the thing or things you go through or do to get to a certain place. They are the outgrowings -- actually, that's a point? When do they or, even, do they ever stop growing? They aren't exactly consequences as we would think of them -- causally tied to the center -- they are their own thing. They are a reminder that advocacy is a process, an outgrowth from the center; it is not an odd on or something to be imported.

The image with which this post begins is one I hope to use as an icon somewhere on this site. In it, I am sitting on the floor (the floor is removed from the photo so that the image of my is on a white background); I have one leg tucked in front, the other stretched out. I am supporting my body on the tucked leg; my one hand holds my foot; my other arm reaches up and out. My wrist bends and drops; I am looking at my hand. Overall, my body makes a kind of "l" shape; in the image, though, I am rotated so that my body covers the left hand corner, framing the text of this post.

I think of that position as one of growth and softness. I protect my body (the hand holding my foot); I extend myself out to the world. My back bone is not visible, but I am very definitely showing spine.