With Love, from the Cosmos

I used to see every person like one single atom, as if we were all beings whirring by on our own respective journeys. I’d think about the person that holds the door for you or the people who smile your way while passing on the street. I thought about all the eyes we hold at the airport. The fleeting conversations where hellos are sewn into goodbye.

I theorized that sometimes the atoms meet for only the briefest of moments. Bumping into the other then quickly continuing on their paths. Some hover nearby each other for seasons at a time. Sometimes they fuse and travel through their own eternity. Then of course, some collide then break apart, shattering into glints of blinding memory. I figured it meant everything and nothing at all.

But as of late, I feel like life has greeted me with lots of its lessons. I look to the moon and I look to the trees and the mountains and I now feel like a woman. My hips sway and my spine follows and in my body like an Egyptian tomb lays buried gems of experience that speak to the cultivation and edification of self.

I ask what does it mean for the mountains to bow. I grow beauty from salted tears. I drink the juice of the pomegranate. I hear the song of my voice. I set my heart ablaze. I feel one thousand suns inside of me.

I think maybe we are more than just atoms.

We are orbs or maybe we have our own worlds. The people we meet and connect with, we invite them into our world. Sometimes they are frequent visitors. There are some who are always welcomed. Some who can stop by without prior notice. And stay the afternoon or weeks at a time. There are some who could only stay for tea. Some who never could seem to stop by. Those you cooked for and those you invited into your bed.

Then of course, there are the ones you waited on until your feet dragged you to your bed, through mud made of tears and damned hope. There are some who stormed out the house. Who knocked the china down and broke the glass and the wine bottles. There are ones who had to be confiscated. Who hide in the bushes banging at the windows demanding to be let back in.

Yes, we have many visitors in our lives.

Sometimes we are the guests. We explore the curtains and the tangerine walls. The rose garden and the mango tree. The records that scatter the living room. The type of cheese in the refrigerator and the seasonings in the cabinet. Rosemary and honey. Brown sugar or white.

Many worlds we admire. Many worlds in which we can never be apart. Some in which we see only the living room. Where we analyze the coffee tables fitted with an encyclopedia of trees. Or ash trays. Or fresh cut flowers. If the inhabitants play chess or checkers or mancala. Sometimes we are free to venture deep inside. Wandering the rooms. Sampling the perfumes and trying on the amethyst jewelry.

There are the visitors that come just to check on you in the midst of a silent storm. They arrive with Vietnam visions and words enshrined with lotus flowers. Some come with blue butterflies and tenderness tattooed in their skin. Others with mischievous cats and silver tattoos and a susurration of Argentina. The ones who thank you for simply existing when you needed to hear it most.

These are the ones whose worlds remind you of your own. Whose home seems like it was always waiting for you. Like atoms that orbit close to one another. Sometimes these are the ones who cooked for you. A porcelain plate of oranges and cinnamon in tiny rivers of olive oil. A sauce of summer tomatoes in winter. Boquerones y vinagre. Mulled wine and Christmas dinner.

But of course, sometimes we overstay our welcome in another’s world. Waiting for a sunset that never came. Loitering in the foyer with downturned eyes, with heart in hand and mouth and tongue, just wanting a chance. Some worlds the memory of them is the only relic that remains. Some worlds you come back to again and again. Each time a different version of yourself.

What if one of life’s gifts to us is all the worlds that we still have yet to visit? I see them suspended like jewels in the sky. Their charm that we can’t even begin to imagine. All the meals that are waiting to be shared and all the wine that’s still to be drunk. All the love waiting like ripened fruit hanging from a summer tree. All the sunsets to marvel. All the street cats to greet. All the kisses that melt space and time. How sacred and magical and redeeming. Conjure this truth in the moments your heart is hurting and you will feel the sun again.

I will confess that these days my life feels like a love affair with the sun. It even dangles around my neck. I move with the moods it breathes in the hours of each day, casting my world in gold and rose golds, flooding my home like the juice from a bitten peach, adorning the walls in shadows. I rest my eyes in its light and many times have wondered if there is a word for when the sun suddenly loses its brightness in a room then gains it back again, brighter than before. I think about how majestic it is to make one’s exit so unforgettable and grand. What it means for one’s existence to be a promise.

Would you mind taking a breath with me? And another and another, in fact as many as you need…

Isn’t it lovely?

It is here I sink into the ritual of my ordinary. My world feels most pure when I’m on swings flying high in the air and wind is rushing in my face and the only language I speak is laughter. I like to eat mandarins in the sun and to have mandarin scented hair. I watch the mountains and clouds flow with the colors of the sky. I listen to the songs of the pájaros. I swim in the ocean of my exhales. I let my heart feel too much. Please, take a piece of my mandarin. Sit with me in the sun. Let’s undress our hearts. We have so much to learn from the mountains.