I’ve started buying flowers from Trader Joe’s and putting them in little vases and empty bottles. Every couple of weeks I’ll select a unique, colorful bouquet. The “filler flowers” are always the ones that stand out to me — bright and long-lasting. Right now, my apartment has bundles of wax flowers propped on tables and shelves. I look at them like little pockets of living art. 

That’s what life has been like since the new year — trying to collect these wildflowers that keep sprouting and spreading. 

I’ve half-heartedly drafted and deleted a few of these letters. Jotted some things down in my journal and returned to them days later only to find that a new profound emotion or idea has captured my attention. All these powerful things keep happening — to me, through me and inside of me — so fast and overwhelming I can barely see them clearly before another one sprouts. 

My grandma is a truly amazing gardener. She has an innate understanding of design and makes sure every plant, blade of grass and flower is in its place. These qualities, along with a thousand others, are some of my favorite things about her. I see so many of those same traits in myself: the desire to prune, organize and monitor. But my life keeps filling up with these unexpected beauties. These overwhelmingly stunning things that don’t fit into my design, yet demand my admiration. And in this way, what was once a garden has become a whole world in bloom, waiting for me to bask in its wonder. Like a sea of bluebonnets on the side of the Texas interstate highway — too many to count, impossible to anticipate and insisting that, even in your hurry to get where you’re going, you stop and witness. 

While so many of the transformative experiences, emotions and ideas from the last few months can’t be confined in words, some of them grew from these seeds: reading bell hook’s trilogy on love in reverse order – Communion (finished), Salvation (halfway) and All About Love (anxiously awaiting). Watching a screening of my friend’s film last night.  Reading this book and thinking about genealogy, home, legacy and the responsibility of being a storyteller.  Reading and rereading this article and thinking about the ideas in this book as I’m continually reckoning with my allegiance to justice, love and personal purpose. This podcast episode of love stories and this one about interracial friendship. This conversation on “being the chooser” and this one on forgiveness. Engaging in generative, challenging and transformative conversations with people I love and value.

Some recent “wildflowers” I’ve gathered and am enjoying are: Facilitating a workshop on religion, spirituality and ethics in Austin. Cutting my hair short to document my unlearning shame, learning embodiment, and re-learning creativity. Remembering my love of suburban midwestern winters while visiting Minnesota. Going to counseling. Identifying as a “wounded healer.” Reconceptualizing aloneness as time in the museum of myself or in my soul’s art studio. Creating a prayer box to make intentional space for holding the suffering of others. Prioritizing yoga with other black folks as an opportunity to heal my own internalized anti-blackness, ableism, fatphobia, sizeism etc. Witnessing miracles — this often comes in the form of someone being so liberated and true in my presence that I experience their spirit/soul as a physical mass I can hold and feel for a fleeting moment (magic). Remembering how much I love taking baths. Practicing sincere apologies. Letting my heart grow big and soft so that I might feel love more fully and be humbled in the face of pain. Allowing myself to be celebrated. Drinking wine in my apartment with friends and realizing I dreamed of this moment – this life – as a young girl. Being enchanted by my word for the year: Dream. 

 Most importantly, I’m continuing to remember how necessary writing and sharing are for me. While this world of wildflowers keeps blooming, I know that my words are the seeds I carry in my pocket and throw to the wind — my contribution to the Great Big Beauty.