What is it to will? To make a request of the future while honoring one's abilities, capabilities, and reckoning to maintain a recognition of the habitual nature of probability. A sense of autonomy spills out from the abundance of engagement binaries: things such as- to talk but not act, to watch but not see, to listen without agreement. To will from the wells of love and connection; a steady buoy of one’s position in the group as an example, follower, believer- weighing the worthy risk of stepping into the uncharted current of risk, growth, and opportunity. A skipping palpitation, a prickle on the back of the tongue, an unfocused gaze through the multitude of possibilities - or the fractal rehearsal of vulnerable failures which unexpectedly and inherently birth a freedom that only comes with such exposure, such closure; stagnation’s anecdote, always within reach of a sodden body- bloated in anticipation of living. I will weigh the outcomes as complete, full of butter or sadness, whichever comes first, both are me. I am no longer willing to avoid accepting myself. I will be willing to explore, to sink, to float, or to swim. I will choke on water and let microbes touch my flesh. I will risk the seaweed and the judgements grappling at my ankles. I will try.

I struggled to watch my son as he wailed in his sadness. His ocean-blue eyes, once bright and alive, now appeared vacant and hollow. I had warned him of these risks, the ones that run so deeply in our blood that they are almost unavoidable. And there he sat before me, needing me but unable to ask for help. I stepped outside of myself to see a version of me without him, before him, after him. I shared my space with him and let the shadows talk- telling stories of hardships, regrets, and pain. I shared my home with him and let the light talk-telling stories of cycles, growth, and abundance. A triggering myriad of words, guiding hope and courage, landed softly somewhere on the hardwood floors and dusty windowsills. Except for one phrase which made its way, gossamerlike, into his soul, seeding itself into his very being, growing slowly in the dark until one day it reached his mind's eye. "Say yes," I told him. And he did. He said yes to life, yes to chance, yes to possibility, and yes to the eternal life force that he had desperately wanted to abandon. His eyes now hold the Caribbean Sea, teeming with magic, accepting the shifts in the tide, saying yes to the sun, the wind, and the rain. I hear him now saying, "Yes" to life.

What if I keep walking towards the sea, waved on by golden grasses and past a lonely tree on a hill, dripping in acorns?

Or on a worn dirt path adorned with polished roots, into cooled air that smells of lichen, through champagne speckles of sun?

What if I keep walking over ancient cobblestones with a woolen pack on my back containing a book, a blanket, brie, and a loaf of bread?

Or by the light of the moon, in wet jeans that chafe freshly shaven crevices.

What if I keep walking away from myself but towards myself to a place where we will never meet?

Or alongside someone leaving?

What if my legs carried me across plains and over mountains, distances that erase what falls behind.

Or past cathedrals that echo sounds of times bygone.

What if I walked through the tunnel and into the light with such gusto that only my footsteps faded as I went.

What if I continue to walk but my pages stay crisp as others ink stamped edges taunt me?

Or what if I rest in the eerie smoke that cancels out the sun at noon, assuming it is safe to stay before the fires arrive.

What if I keep walking over sunflower seed casings looking for evidence of connection through a journey of disconnection.

Or feel the cotton wick my sweat with each stride as I glide under broken branches.

What if I keep walking in the direction they wanted me to, towards conditional salvation, sticky with compromises?

Or with a skip in my step, knowing there is plenty of love to go around.
What if I believe that my judgement is worthy of trust and I walk into a whole new world.