Whilst being an enthusiast for using the body to learn, I appreciate the power of words to communicate an experience. So as I attempt some kind of review of 2021, I have to say that words played an essential role in one of the year’s personal highlights. I had the privilege of getting to know and working with a young woman named Aryam in the retelling of her story as a refugee coming to this country from Syria. This was for a presentation at a community arts festival and one sunny afternoon last July she simply sat and read aloud her narrative. There was no embodiment – she did not need to ‘act it out’, her words were enough. It was simple and effective, the essence of an experience captured beautifully when she spoke of her parents, “When they came here, they were like so happy, they actually slept after five years. Finally we can sleep.” Those concluding words remain with me as a powerful embodiment of what freedom from fear means.