what i'm particularly noticing these days is that what is left behind - or, more precisely, what remains with me - as i trek towards the sea feels like a continued shedding of the unnecessary. the encumbering. a moulting of sorts. it is not that i am a more sincere version of myself. sincerity of self is relative and 'true' at all stages of one's life, i think. maybe it's more that my reference points are both more precise and more broad rather than casting a net of, simply, close proximity in order to establish definition.
while i am, at times, wistful remembering the unfurling, when my younger self stumbled from forested trail to open meadow and eagerly soaked up a day's sunshine, i am entirely cognizant that the new land i now traverse is, in many ways, more complex...and my map is only slightly more accurate. i do find, however, that i am much better at re-orienting to true north.
because i see now that the flowers were, actually, akin to a magnifying glass directing sunlight to a tinder. they have nurtured a growing & sustaining resource for me...in me...that, with attentive breaths and shelter from torrential rain, might ripen into something much less transient than a flower.
&, gathered together, they resemble a sea anemone.
with the remains of umbilical cords
where the flowers once grew.
