I always do this.
Lush green vines growing out of concrete, their thorny pricks reaching toward the sun as if to say in a spidery voice, “Come closer…Closer.”
Life has been a desolate parking lot for the last month. Dry, cracked, broken, and utterly ugly. But still, tiny green tendrils are sprouting through the cracks and I am watering them all with tears and sweat.
I always do this.
Bloom best in rocky soil.
Transform my body, my heart, my life in the most torrential conditions. I am not sure why my creative muse and marrow bus driver hang out at the bar together just waiting for everything to crash and burn before they come busting out the door into the daylight with swords blazing, ready to carve out a new me but this is what happens.
I thrive. It seems like that is what I was born to do.
When I look back on all the worst times in my life I’ve always had the company of my own strong backbone, a toothy mouth ready to bite the ass of the world, and feet that keep walking even when full of nails and broken glass.
Because that’s what I do.
I am coming out of the fog of grief slowly and the sparkly winds of “but look over here at this thing you can do to make everything better” are blowing all around me. Ideas are keeping me up at night. Ways to help my beloved wife. Ways to make more money so she can retire early. Ways to propel my body toward better health. Things I can do to help the people around me. All the things big and small that will add love and health and wild beauty to everything around me.
I’ve been down for a while but my spine is straightening and it feels amazing.
Here’s to all the ugly things that remind us to make beauty.
And here’s to my marrow, the wild lava of hope.