“and i said to my body. softly. ‘i want to be your friend.’ it took a long breath. and replied ‘i have been waiting my whole life for this.’” ― Nayyirah Waheed
I have been waiting my whole life for a breath deep enough to melt the fear of being too much of everything. Too energetic. Too intelligent. Too fast. Beautiful. Capable. Reverent. Loving… For years, (decades maybe) I hardly breathed at all, trying to make myself small, unthreatening, invisible. I wore shapeless clothes, spoke in whispers, shifted my eyes, smiled only when caught off guard, pretended I didn’t know. I tried to hide myself away, dull my shiny bits, keep my impact on others to a minimum. But one day, when the pain of being bound in such a tiny box finally became more than I could bear, I broke down and sobbed. I sobbed for hours. For days. For weeks. Until the force of my sobbing (and the long desperate breaths that came with it) burst the restrictive bars that kept me small. Then for a long time, I lay there, stunned by the spaciousness ― delighting in each breath. Inhaling vastness. Exhaling pain. Inhaling wonder. Exhaling fear. Until I was huge and other people’s words didn’t hurt anymore. Until I could feel my feet connecting to the earth. Until I was on fire… wild and energizing and lighting up the whole sky!
— heidi kalyani, 2017
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
