“Feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living.” - Andrea Gibson
I began my day listening to Andrea Gibson read, Love Letter From the Afterlife to their partner, Megan Falley. That was not what I had planned. I’d planned to work on my latest essay. But there was Andrea, waiting in my browser, there to remind me that “dying is the opposite of leaving.”
“How was it possible for Andrea to step beyond the veil of their own mortality?” I wondered as I listened. “How did they squeeze their way into the imperceptible interstices between one moment and the next - persuade thought to abandon linear time and accept the presence of a spirit so omnipresent, so luminous that it dissolved every hint of shadow?”
Why did I ask? Because I’ve been there - stepped into the presence of another’s incandescent spirit - held my breath as it passed into the cavities of bones where dust motes of eternity were waiting. “You found us!” the dust motes giggled as they danced away, trailing glittering breadcrumbs of light in their wake. “Follow us, follow us,” they chanted.
But of course there is only so much unconditional regard, only so many times the rules of physical reality can be refuted before the body begins to remember and refuses to play the game any longer.
But you see, I’m not interested in transcendence. I believe it’s possible for the awareness of spirit to embody - for physical reality to step out of the duality play and into balance. That’s what I glimpsed in Andrea’s poem - spirit and form colliding, forced to co-exist as the poetry of grief - tears, heartbeats, back pocket notes, and deep-seated fears playing musical chairs.
I think Andrea left us a trail of breadcrumbs. If we’re persistent and present and loving enough those crumbs will lead us to them. It’s up to us to follow the trail.
It probably goes without saying that words were not enough today. I put my pen down and stepped outside, intending to walk beside my favorite pond, hug some trees, and trade quips with the jays who hang out there. But it was already over 100 degrees with 100% humidity. I was only 30 minutes into my walk before I had to turn around. I barely made it home before the first cracks of lightning ripped the sky open.
What followed was the most intense, bone-shaking display of nature’s fury I’ve ever experienced. Make no mistake, the Earth is pissed and it showed. The clouds pressed so close, the lightning was so supercharged, and the hail so icy with indignation that I hide in my closet. I stayed there until the storm had made its point and moved on.
It’s now 10:22 pm and I can’t quite settle down. I’m exhausted but not sleepy - wanting to move but have nowhere to go. Thunder is rumbling again in the distance so I’m considering getting out my futon and sleeping in the closet.
Tomorrow I have an appointment with my ENT doctor to discuss how best to deal with my asthma. I know, but probably won’t tell her, that I would be able to breathe just fine if the stress would ease up and drowning wasn’t a distinct possibility.
So tell me. How was your day?
Copyright 2026 by Jena Ball. All Rights Reserved.
"Wanting to move but have nowhere to go." Yes. That is what is unsettled about my life. Somewhere to go has always been determined by others, primarily through my job and its pressure and deadlines, but also school with midterms and homework and another degree to chase. Even relationships. I've been trying to give myself direction: less stuff, less weight, more fitness, finish old projects, learn new skills. Those are all good, healthy things, often satisfying, sometimes even enjoyable. I am realizing that so much of my direction has come from the outside, and now I have to find direction in myself, and that is hard, especially since my overall sense has been and is of heading downhill towards oblivion. Even thinking that makes my heart flutter. But sometimes I can also enter the spaces between breaths where there is no time, and space is vast. And I think a possible opening is to practice being in the boundless present and let direction take me where it wants to go.