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Caloroga Shark Media. Hello, and welcome to Romance Weekly. This
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is Wildflower, episode two, the Overgrowth. I call him the
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next morning, not because I'm ready, I'm not sure I'll
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ever be ready, but because the flowers have spread overnight.
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My bedroom ceiling is covered in climbing roses, pale pink
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blooms opening toward a light source that doesn't exist. The
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kitchen sink has sprouted water lilies. And when I opened
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my closet to get dressed for work, I found my
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suits wrapped in ivy. My carefully organized wardrobe transformed into
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a vertical garden. I can't go to work like this.
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I can't go anywhere like this. Whatever is happening to me,
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it's accelerating. Roman picks up on the second ring, Eleise.
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His voice is rough, like I woke him. Everything okay, No,
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nothing is okay. My apartment looks like a botanical garden
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had a nervous breakdown. And I have a meeting with
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Miranda Whitmore in four hours and I don't know how
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to make it stop. A pause. Then I'll be there
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in thirty minutes. He hangs up before I can give
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him my address. I realize looking at the phone in
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my hand that I never told him where I live.
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He arrives in twenty seven minutes. I've spent the time
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trying to impose some kind of order on the chaos,
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Pulling nds off my work clothes, clearing a path through
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the living room, attempting to prune the roses on my
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ceiling with kitchen scissors. None of it helps. The flowers
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grow back as fast as I cut them, sometimes faster.
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By the time I hear the knock on my door,
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I've given up. I'm sitting on my couch, surrounded by blooms,
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still in my pajamas. I open the door, and Roman
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takes in the scene without comment. His eyes move from
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the ivy covered walls to the lily filled sink, to me,
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standing in the middle of it, like the eye of
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a very floral storm. Okay, he says, calmly. This is
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more advanced than I expected, more advanced. This is a disaster.
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This is I gesture helplessly at the apartment. How am
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I supposed to explain this? How am I supposed to
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live like this? You're not not like this, He steps inside,
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closing the door behind him. This is what happens when
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you fight it. The more you try to suppress it,
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the harder it pushes back. I'm not fighting anything. I'm
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just existing in a state of constant control, keeping every
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emotion locked down, every instinct managed, every part of yourself
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carefully contained. He looks at me, not unkindly. That is fighting.
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You've been fighting your whole life. The wild magic is
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just the first thing strong enough to fight back. I
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sink onto the couch. A cluster of violets immediately sprouts
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from the cushion beside me. I don't know how to
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be any other way. I admit this is who I am.
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This is how I function No. Roman sits on the
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floor across from me, cross legged, like we're having a
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casual conversation instead of discussing the botanical apocalypse in my
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living room. This is how you survive. There's a difference.
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He talks and I listen, not just because I need answers,
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though I do, but because his voice is calming in
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a way I can't explain, measured, deliberate, like every word
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has been considered before it leaves his mouth, the voice
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of someone who has learned to be careful. Wild magic
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isn't something you control he explains, that's the first thing
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you have to understand. It's not a tool, it's not
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a skill. It's not something you can manage the way
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you manage everything else in your life. It's a force
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like gravity or weather. You can work with it, but
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you can't command it. Then what's the point If I
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can't control it, it just does whatever it wants. The
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point is integration. He picks a fallen petal off the floor,
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turning it between his fingers. Right now, the magic separate
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from you. It's this thing inside that you've been pushing down,
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and now it's erupting because it has nowhere else to go.
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But if you stop fighting, if you let it become
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part of you instead of something you're at war with,
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it finds balance. How do you know because I went
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through this ten years ago, He lets the petal fall.
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When I came back from the fire, I couldn't walk
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down a street without leaving a trail of grass behind me,
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couldn't touch a dead tree without it blooming. I thought
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I was cursed. I thought I was a monster. I
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spent the first two years running from it, trying to
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suppress it, exactly like you're doing. Now. What changed I
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got tired, he almost smiles. Exhausted, really couldn't fight anymore.
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So I stopped. I let it do what it wanted,
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let myself feel what I was feeling, let the wildness
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exist without trying to cage it. And slowly, over months,
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it settled, found a rhythm, became part of me instead
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of something I was carrying. I look around my apartment,
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the roses on the ceiling, the lilies in the sink,
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the ivy slowly consuming my bookshelf. I don't know how
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to stop fighting, I say quietly. I've been doing it
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for so long. I don't remember any other way. Then
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we start there. He stands, offers me his hand. Come on,
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I want to show you something. We go to a park,
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not a formal garden, not a designed space, just a
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scrappy urban park a few blocks from my building. Patchy grass,
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a few struggling trees, a playground with rust on the swings,
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the kind of place that exists because the city needed
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to meet a green space quota, not because anyone particularly cared.
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Roman leads me to a bench at the far end,
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away from the dog walkers and joggers. Sit, he says,
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and close your eyes. Why because you need to feel
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it without seeing it. Your brain is too good at
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managing visual information. You'll start planning and strategizing before you
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even know what you're working with. I sit, I close
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my eyes. It feels ridiculous, a thirty three year old
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woman sitting on a park bench with her eyes closed
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in the middle of a Tuesday morning. But I've already
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passed ridiculous. Ridiculous happens somewhere around the water lilies in
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my kitchen sink. Now, Roman says, his voice, coming from
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somewhere to my left. I want you to feel the
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ground beneath you, not conceptually, actually feel it, the hardness
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of the bench, the solidity of the earth under that,
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the way it supports you without you having to do anything.
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I try. It's harder than it sounds. My brain keeps
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wanting to label things, categorize them, file them away. Bench
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wood painted approximately forty years old municipal standard design. But
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I push past that, try to feel instead of analyze.
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The bench is solid, the ground is solid. I'm being
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held up good. Now, feel beyond that, feel what's underneath,
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what's underneath everything, the roots of those trees spreading out
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under the soil, the dormant seeds waiting for the right conditions,
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the mycolium networks connecting every plant in this park. Life
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elise everywhere, all the time, pushing toward the surface. I
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try to feel it. For a long moment, there's nothing,
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just darkness behind my eyelids and the distant sound of traffic.
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And then something shifts, like a radio tuning to a
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new frequency, a sudden clarity where there was only static.
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I feel, feel, not imagine, a web of something beneath me,
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threads of a liveness, pulsing, slowly, connecting everything. The trees
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aren't separate, they're talking to each other through their roots.
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The grass isn't just grass, It's a community, sharing resources,
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sending signals. The whole park is one organism pretending to
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be many. My breath catches you feel it, Roman says,
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not a question. I feel everything. It's all connected, it's
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all I can't find the words. It's alive, really alive,
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not just existing, but wanting, reaching, growing. That's the wild magic,
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that's what's inside you. His voice is closer now, not
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something foreign, not something imposed, just life doing what life does,
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insisting on itself. I open my eyes. The park looks
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different now, sharper, more vivid. I can almost see the
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aliveness thrumbing beneath the surface of things. And when I
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look at Roman, I see it in him too, a
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greenness around the edges, a sense of growth, barely contained.
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He's carrying the same thing I am. He's just learned
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to let it breathe. How do I make peace with it?
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I ask? How do I stop fighting without letting it
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consume everything? Practice, time, a willingness to let go of control.
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He pauses, and maybe someone to remind you that the
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wildness isn't your enemy? Is that what you are? A reminder?
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I don't know what I am. He meets my eyes
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and there's something unguarded in his expression. But I know
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I've been alone in this for ten years, and I
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know that being alone made everything harder. So if I
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can be something to you, a reminder, a guide, a friend,
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then that's more than I've had a friend. Such a
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simple word, such a complicated thing, when you've spent your
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life keeping everyone at arm's length. Okay, I say, then
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be that. Over the next week. We meet every day,
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sometimes at the park, sometimes at Hartfield while he works
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on the Gala installation. Sometimes at a diner near his place,
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where the coffee is terrible, but the book a private.
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He teaches me things, not spells or techniques, but perspectives,
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ways of thinking about the magic that don't involve fighting it.
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Feel it as part of your breath, he says, one afternoon,
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while we're walking through the estate gardens. In and out.
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It expands when you breathe in, settles when you breathe out,
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natural rhythm, not forced. I try, on the inbreath, I
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feel the magic swell inside me, pressing against my ribs.
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On the outbreath, it recedes, not gone, but resting. It's
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still there when I stop paying attention, but it's not
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erupting anymore, not demanding better, Roman says, now, try walking
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without leaving a trail. I've been leaving flowers everywhere I go,
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a breadcrumb trail of blooms marking my path. It's gotten
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less dramatic since I started working with Roman. No more
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ceiling roses, no more closet ivy. But it's still happening.
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Every step I take leaves a tiny flower in my wake.
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I focus on my breathing in, swell out, settle. I
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take a step forward. No flower another step another. I
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walk twenty feet across the manicured lawn without leaving a
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single bloom behind me. I did it. The joy in
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my voice surprises me. I sound like a child who's
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just learned to ride a bike. Roman, I did it.
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You did. He's smiling, a real smile, not the almost
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smiles I've seen before. It changes his whole face, makes
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him look younger. See, you can work with it. It
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just takes practice. I'm grinning, actually grinning. And then I
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noticed something where I'm standing where I stop to celebrate,
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A ring of wild flowers has erupted around my feet,
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purple and yellow and white, a perfect circle of blooms. Oh,
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my joy deflates. I thought I had it. You do
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have it. You walk twenty feet without a trail. He
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walks over, stands beside me, looks at the flower ring.
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The burst at the end was emotion, not loss of control. Joy. Specifically,
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the magic responds to feeling. So every time I feel something,
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flowers happen. Every time you feel something strongly. When you're calm, centered, breathing,
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it stays quiet when you're emotional, it expresses, He shrugs.
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Could be worse. I spent my first year, setting fires
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every time I got angry. Fires. The magic isn't always
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about growing. Sometimes it's about burning away what's dead to
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make room for new growth. He looks at his hands.
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Took me a long time to find the growing side.
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For a while, all I had was the burning. There's
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something in his voice, old pain, old shame, and I
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understand suddenly that his journey with this has been harder
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than he's letting on. He's not just teaching me because
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he's generous. He's teaching me because he knows what happens
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when you face this alone. I'm glad you found the
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growing side, I say. He looks at me. Something passes
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between us. Not romantic, not yet, but something recognition, maybe
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the sense of being truly seen by someone who understands
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me too. He says. My apartment is still wild, but
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it's a different kind of wild. Now I stop trying
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to fight the flowers. Instead, I've been practicing presents, sitting
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with the growth, breathing with it, letting it exist without
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needing it to be different. The ceiling roses have settled
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into a kind of canopy, dense enough to provide shade
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if there were any sun to block. The ivy on
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the walls has found a pattern, spiraling up in ways
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that look almost intentional. The violets on my couch have
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arranged themselves into cushions, soft and fragrant. It's not the
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minimalist sanctuary I designed. It's not controlled or contained or manageable.
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But it's also not chaos anymore. It's something else, something alive.
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Roman comes over on a Thursday evening, ostensibly to help
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me practice containment exercises, but when he walks in, he
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stops in the doorway and just looks. You've stopped fighting,
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He says, I've stopped fighting. He walks through the apartment,
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slowly trailing his fingers along the ivy wall, touching the
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rose canopy with something like reverence. This is beautiful, he says.
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This is what it looks like when you let it
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be part of you. It's a mess. It's a garden.
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He turns to face me, your garden, the one that's
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been waiting inside you your whole life, while you told
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yourself you had to be empty and clean and controlled.
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Something swells in my chest emotion, recognition, the particular ache
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of being understood. Flowers immediately burst from the floor, around
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my feet, a cascade of color, responding to the feeling.
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I look down at them, embarrassed. Sorry, I'm still working
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on that. Don't apologize. Roman crosses the room, stepping carefully
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around the blooms, and stops in front of me. Don't
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ever apologize for this. This is you, Elise, the real you,
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the whole you, the version and you were told was
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too much. She's not too much. She's exactly right. My