On turning 24 and shedding skin
I walked through being 23 empty-handed & lonesome; stripped off the warmth in the mold that casted my existence. A complete year away from the lands I used to call home. Being 23 was very much about trying to become both tender as the blue in the sky & daredevil as the red dancing in flames. In aiming to be everything, life felt wilder than ever before; in aiming for the sun, my thinking sometimes got reduced to mere shorthand. A year I finally dared to flood. And in doing so, I ran face first into several walls that tore open my skin. I learned that some people will lie straight to your face; and it’s not like in the Hollywood realm where an evil look or a stuttering voice will give away their lying. It’s usually the opposite: pretty, very pretty smiles that will convince you to run barefoot on shattered glass. It took time and guts to wrap my head around the idea that it’s okay to walk into these labyrinths; to understand that some of the doors we open will lead to black holes and it’s not a crime but nature to let the body get absorbed into the void.
Nature as living art. Nature as force. Nature as the shadows of our dreams. Nature as morning walks. Nature as being. My 23s were all about nature and my relationship with her. It felt like befriending a neighbor and finding out they’re cool as fuck: ‘hey you’ve always been there and it’s just now that I realize I’ve been missing out on great things all these years’. I bonded with nature and her frozen whites, vivid greens and Mediterranean blues. She held my hand and walked me barefoot through silent rainforest. She looked at me with eyes that shouted ‘dare to become’. And then it hit me: I’m more ready than ever to touch the world with my bare hands... even if it melts down in flames.
