May ‘17 Set
May 30, 2017
Tulips are a strange phenomenon. They open and close with light and darkness, but over-extend every morning until eventually they are unable to close. Then their petals fall off and all you have are their naked heads.
On that note, this month I am thinking about what it looks like to protect something when that something is your self. It was a difficult month of introspection, as old demons flared, and new situations demanded more rigorous thinking processes.
Growth is a strange and gradual thing. I guess I identify with that dirty, layered, buried tulip bulb, green shoot pushing through, sharp and soft at the same time. But I also see the inevitable logic of the tulip flower, its slow flirtation with sunlight and eventual intimate baring.
What in us keeps pushing past the layers of skin? Why don't we learn? And why, like the tulip, do we pursue something like the sun with reckless abandon?
I question these things in me. Why knowing better doesn't necessarily mean doing better. Why weaknesses over time are still weaknesses, just more protected. And when everything has fallen, what should I do with nakedness. Do I fall to the earth or scatter to the wind? What does it mean to be loved when all the petals have fallen?
May has more questions than answers, which isn't a bad thing.
Just, most nights, allowing them to settle quietly across me, trying to pull in what I can so as to greet another morning, so as to greet another morning, and another, and another, and another, I wonder.
