ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the embodied experiences and insights of a woman named Pat, who describes herself as a "sixty-something lesbian" born and raised in the relative comfort of a white, middle-class family. When she thinks back to physical education class in school, she remembers that she was often made to feel a lack of confidence in her body. She notes that the teachers and coaches were pretty clear in their favoritism of the "natural athletes" and she was never assisted in finding her own capacities, or to develop her own knowing of her body as skillful. She speculates that there was a "certain state of collapse" in her body that reflected a similar state of collapse in her psyche. She notes that there was a lot of enmeshment in the relationship, and that even though she believes that she contributed to the blurring of lines of identity, she often experienced a sense of being invaded.
