Saturday morning and outside my window the winter storm left imprints of destruction accumulated in frost-bitten lawns, broken pipes and anxious hearts. On this side of the blinds, a chemical reaction: the icicles in my spine had melted into an immaculate ebullience of joy and freedom. Listen, listen, the gut is speaking, the blood swimming in fleshy caves of wonder: you are high on life! Get out of the house now, child, and overdose your ears with poetry, your feet with movement, your eyes with blue sky. I knew why: just the day before I had fed my soul with a velvety protein called confidence. I published a blog post about my unconventional trip to a previous life and chose not to care if the world thought my fuses were loose. Let ‘em learn from your vulnerable craters!, said the fairy in my aorta. Let ‘em poison in their own venomous fangs of judgement!, said the raven in my bile. I put on my walking shoes, a bright magenta sweatshirt, a mouth full of smile and off I went, Emicida gracing my ears with contagious tropical hip hop that sounded both angry and lustful.
If the gorgeous yet heavy lyrics dissecting the inequalities of my beloved Brazil didn’t exactly match my privileged upbringing or my exact state of mind, their passion and political activism filled my cup with hope and poetry, the fast beat synchronized with my heartbeat. I strolled the streets of West U in flow, floating, beaming, a jolt of endorphine per step in a world that felt sensual again, fertile even under skeletal, leafless tree branches, as if in the process of melting, the snow had inseminated my soul with an explicit desire to marvel. Texas still coming back online but my spirit was operating at high voltage, my energy grid publicly undressed, and oh, it was a beautiful thing to feel and oh, I knew the world could see it! I saw drivers looking at me, smiling at me -- one car, two cars, three cars, beeeep, traffic voyeurs -- my happiness moving in invisible waves (a wish: soak them all with vibrancy!).
I wanted to encapsulate that moment as I knew it was ephemeral even for someone who feels content and cheerful most of the time, though often barbarically inquisitive. The expiration date could be just minutes away because nothing is constant, we all have in us the moon that rises and blooms, the sun that shines from yellow to red, the rain that caresses and pours, the wind that whispers and destroys. My high eventually washed off, but I never crashed. Triggered by somebody else’s judgement, I questioned my decision to publish my spiritual journey. Insecurity itched for a moment, but more like a small pack of fleas and I had prophylactic measures in place: days later, during a short guided meditation I was asked to think of a moment of joy. In the depths of my brain I found a closet full of jars, one of them with magenta pills overflowing with radiant blue skies.
