“Cultivate your curves – they may be dangerous but they won’t be avoided.” – Mae West

Today I celebrate my hips. And their abutment. Yes. A pun.

Butt, ass, rear-end, tail, hind-quarters, buttocks, junk in the trunk, badonkadonk and my grandmother’s favorite; boombacity. I’m quite sure she made that up, because when I searched it, even Google was stumped.

Hips and their two rounded friends provide a valuable service to all of humanity. As a key player in the mating dance they beckon would-be suitors, emitting a sonar meant only for a certain few. They work the middle ground, grinding, gyrating, providing cushion and handles during the process of procreation. On a woman they separate, hold steady, expand and contract to allow new life to emerge; then provide a perch for that very life through its first few years.

They are strong, forming the shared pedestal for the torso, for the reproductive organs, the heart.

Not only that, they’re fun. They swivel, sway and sashay. They jiggle and shimmy.

I have enjoyed my robust hips and their friends most of my life, they grow and contract with me, maintaining my curves, never losing my curves.  They have enjoyed all the dancing and walking and hijinx the rest of my lower body has been party to, but they have also softened, opened and relented more than the lower joints. They have succumbed to yoga, been enticed by the breath. They have let go when I thought I could surrender no more room.

They remind me I am strong. I am flexible. They let me know I still have the capacity to open even more.