I resist with softness.

Musings on a Friday Evening in November

When I arrive home in the evenings, my fingers immediately find the tin. The smell permeates throughout the apartment, and somehow, I cannot find it within myself to care. More than anything, rest and comfort now reside in my skin. Before, it was nothing but edge and panic.

I spend eight hours a day draped in a mask I do not recognize. It is leftover from a life I no longer want to live. She was eager. She was wide-eyed. She wanted to be something, anything, successful. Manufactured ambition once held her hostage. Must be good, must be more than good. Must be perfect. Must be the best. Must—must—must.

When I look back, I see exactly who I was before I found the closest I've ever come to peace. Before the flower, there was fear. Before the city, there was town. Before the women, there were men. Now, ten years on, the curve of her bare calf beckons, fingers trailing across soft skin like bloodhounds. It’s easy to imagine. It’s a fragile thing to hold in my hands, like a vintage snow globe. A pretty perfect picture, if there ever was one.

Still, I dream of middle-aged lip lines curved around a smirk like parentheses. I study grey temples and sideburns on the subway, knowing a single word could bring them to me. It excites me like nothing else. I am weightless. I am alive. I am aroused. It is everything and nothing at the same time. As soon as one of them touches me, I turn numb. The familiar sensation fills the room with soft, white smoke. My body, tense and unsure, remains frozen. My mind wanders back to its childhood, before loss colored the world in a semi-permanent sheen of shame.

There, in that other space, I am untouchable. I am unreachable. I become a version of myself I do not recognize. This version is foreign. I do not know how to welcome her into my body.

The flower helps. With it, I can let go of whatever wounded that part of me, at least for a little while. The days pass in a sort of trance. I find myself drifting in and out of consciousness, and yet, remain planted. I am well-acquainted with silence and solitude. These are the tenets of this artist’s life—even whilst she recognizes the occasional need for other things—community, money, family, health, love.

The flower dulls me at the edges just enough that my inner world reveals itself in swooping, soft lines. What was once harsh has been made calm. What was once “mature for its age” is now green and unformed. Like the worn, blue ridge mountains that cradled me, I wear the morning fog like a cloak. I learn and earn as much from the world as the world gives back to me, if not more.

I walk slower. I buy less. I listen more. I seek comfort, quality, and softness in my clothes. I hold people up where others couldn’t hold me up before.

I resist with softness.

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