When I was little I truly liked the company I kept. I would sit in one particular place in our kitchen where the sun flooded the floors and showed the days dust in an elevated, fluid ritualistic dance. I’d write poetry there about the yucca flowers and pineapple sage. In the afternoons I’d swim breathless laps, and practice soccer for hours in order to keep up with all the boys, just to prove to my father that I could. And when I would make my snacks I’d tend to the presentation thoughtfully- like I was making them for someone so special. I  worked hard on  engineering gifts by hand with unwavering spirit, and when I finished they seemed just as much for me as they were for the gifted.  Everything I did was unwavering in its purity, I was honest in who I was, I liked the company I kept. 

  I have never been able to place the exact moment it all shifted, it is still blurry, charred, and nonlinear, but I know it was during a time when I was almost old enough but still too young to have to grow up. All I remember was having to lose it all in order to truly start again. It didn’t change me, but I was never the same. I stopped writing about the world in lucid around me, and I was far too far away to remember the yucca flowers and the scent of pineapple sage. 

 I fell in love with anything that exhibited permanence- the moon, the stars, every and any rock or stone. My studies taught me that there was a science to almost everything; reindeers eyes take on adaptation and change in colour through the seasons so they can capture more light in the dimly lit months of winter. Aspen Grooves root systems can lay dormant for years until conditions are just right for growth. Most flowers bloom every spring in vibrant alluring shades in order to attract the honeybee chemist who has no time for sorrow while undoing the stains of time. And then there is Moonflower that only opens up in the evenings so as to attract the perfect moth... But there was no such sense or science to resiliency. How it is the ambitious fish spends a lifetime with and against the very currents that resist him in order to find his way home. No one tells you how to do it- only that it must get done.  

  Any great philosopher knows that in order to find answers, you must go back to where it all started. Go back to your beginnings, the roots, the grit, the tangled lineage. It feels similar to the layering complex of compost- going through it feels messy, sour, aroma fresh of foul- but on the other side lies richly nourished soil for any and every bloom. We have to understand our own complexities before we can even attempt to be useful to the world. "Be kind, be useful" my papas voice would echo. 

 During those days someone explained to me that when we have wounds in our body, the nearby muscles will cramp and tighten around them in order to protect them from anymore violation and infection, so you need to use these muscles if you ever want them to relax again. It feels like a painful ripping sensation at first, but within minutes the pain is gone- and it is gone permanently.  So I practiced. I got better and clever at the alchemization of painful experience in order to get to the other side. 

I think that something similar happens with our psychic muscles. They cramp around our wounds – the pain from our childhood, the losses and disappointments of adulthood­, the humiliation suffered in both –to keep us from getting hurt in the same place again, and again. To keep foreign substances out. 

But we are here to love. We are here to exercise our hearts and tend to the muscles that paralyze, push, and pull around them to keep us safe. We are here to fall apart and find our way back together.  It is what makes up the most vital fabric of our existence. There will always be  switchblades that kick in canyons in the cavities of your chest, sometimes so efficiently deep that it will make rivers out of you - but there is art, the night sky, the wild, and the precious jewelled arms of loved ones worn and wrapped around your neck for that.  Yin yang; the ancient symbol of harmony, reminds us that life is a balancing act and most fulfilling when we learn to embrace its dualities. The most painful moments in my life have expanded me, and when pain left space remained. Space I filled with life itself.