I used to give a lot, you know. So many words and images, a daily practice of sharing. Funny, that, when I look back. Prayers, journals, machines. Low-weight, high-rep. I was learning to open my heart space.

When the world stopped I stopped myself. I pulled back, and in that pulling back, I curled inward. I left for the most part, and there’s a poem where Mary Oliver writes of the death that comes for artists that retreat to the trees. I hear what she’s saying there, but I think perhaps it’s more so that inward curl, wherever we are, that takes us when we fall from our webs.

I’ve learned that spiders curl when they molt, not only when they die. And oh, how my shoulders ache these days as I open my arms to welcome the day, to welcome the night. I faced death while giving life. Thresholds upon thresholds, I’ve left a lot behind.