Like a slathering of very good stuff all over the skin of your legs, like feeling pretty and mesmerizing, and then—
everything is the way it is, no matter age or time of day or year or season.
Those beautiful little moments when everything inside is shot through with a purely wonderful gleam, and it’s the type that wants the world to know—not loudly, but softly, and kept secret but shared, generously. Just in case it might inspire someone else to recognize they have some of it, too.
When everything feels so alive and so massive but moving alongside is the knowledge that it actually is a very small, individual thing, and that no other person can get in that little pocket of exhilaration with you. They can’t, because only in certain genetically physical situations are we connected by our soft tissue and bones, and we don’t share skin or visceral organs, and so we can only whisper of these magical little shifts in our lives.
A metaphorical clap on the back is nearly offensive, as an “atta girl,” or “how lovely for you,” or “you’re overdue.” Someone can say, “I love that for you,” but the crux of the thing is that I love this for me.
It’s a new thing, this thing. It’s dreamy, and it’s like mercury separating and rolling, and very difficult to grasp. It can’t be easily contained and nearly impossible to pin down. It feels good everywhere, and on the inside and the outside. And it isn’t love. It isn’t romance. It’s something new. A new place to occupy, where today is not like yesterday, and whatever is ahead is forever rearranged.
Knowing something solid is power. Understanding something that might not have been on the radar the previous day or hour is a sort of freedom.
Lock your doors. Let in the cat. Flick the switch on the outdoor lights. By the time a body is resting in that cozy bed, a sense of safety and correctness takes your hand and follows you into sleep.
This is like that.
I feel safe again. From the intrusion of the fallout of another’s poor choices, sprinkling bitterness and splashing resentment over so many, many of my good times, and then, after an exit, remaining in my life and sort of tweaking out due to this loose legal connection that lingers, like a troll at the accident scene.
But not my car crash. The other guy’s.
People can go, but they leave behind a bit of residue at times, like a snail.
And maybe that is the thing that feels so new: not that everything has changed, but that everything is finally allowed to be the way it is.
Without someone else’s choices sitting on top of it.
To be continued…
above + feet on the sand with a friend +
above left + my first night flight + learning to fly
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