The first discovery I made was how easy it can be to find a sanctuary in the midst of chaos: The road on the highway had become intolerable for an immense number of reasons. And on the cusp of displeasure, on the border of sanity, the memory of a custom already well established between both; struck our aching minds: our trips in our own car, with our own music.

I had to tell her how much I wished to be like this, and not surrounded by alcoholic voices and vulgar music grinding in our eardrums. That's when, in the middle of the sunset, we proposed an almost silent game in the middle of the noise. It was about whispering in our ears some of the usual songs that accompanied us to our peaceful destinations.

The second discovery I made was when I told him "Play the moon song now". And his voice sweetly narrated a night sky that had not yet appeared. I put this one that says, "I want you to come with me anywhere else." That's how we spent some time. The first half hour of the night, I felt scared. One that his hand clutched to mine, managed to appease, and we got, in a murmur, home to the place where I see myself forever. And no one but him could have accompanied me in a spiritual revelation of that magnitude.

When I'm not erupting

The third discovery is that if I hadn't grown up with the Caribbean wrapped in my hair and its salt dressing my skin regardless of the season, perhaps I would understand in the blood the cyclical back and forth of the beloved. This latitude of upbringing does not make me know how to offer more than eternal beaches, with days of deluges and others of dazzling suns, but always the beach.

I would like my warm tropic love to surrender to change without reluctance for at least once. To yield to impermanence calmly and make myself stationary, transformable. I would also like to know about winter, to make sense of the cold that today lashes the ends of my hooded body, I would like to see my hands spring up, roots growing again, and a reborn flower on each finger.

I haven't been pretty today. Furthermore, I haven't been feeling pretty. And today I loved myself anyway, because I have a human body that feels, and I don't need anymore... I have always seen in myself a different and better person than others can see. I've definitely never managed to convey that vision, but I'm still working on it on my own, I'm achieving it, and I'm moving towards peace with myself.

Furthermore, I am grateful to my little temple of imperfect skin, for receiving water and air, for looking and listening, smelling and tasting the world, for taking me places, for making me smile, cry, scream, and fall in love, and also for dreaming and suffering, fearing and thinking, losing, caressing and living... Likewise, I am my favorite soul.

I would like to understand the end as a fluid return of life. I understand what they say about those returning colors. The changing quality of life. I would like to understand, even if it is one day, to understand... give a little sense to that darkness and that light that coexist.