"If i was a spider princess, things would be different..."

I am not a princess, spider or otherwises. Physically, I am no different than the me of 24 hours ago. These same cells and ligaments that now suspend thousands of feet over the Atlantic Ocean bear no different marks than those that waited tables in Bay Shore, that stocked shelves in Northampton, that dreamed away Washington nights. Still?

A goldfish will only grow as large as his tank allows. When those fins sense that the walls of plexiglass are closing in, the body just stops - a hibernation of development. Drop the same little guy in a backyard pond and he would grow forever.

I am no different. Still, deep in my tissues, in places dark and dangerous, a message has been relayed. The plexiglass is shifting. I am transplanting. Growth, once considered impossible, is a possibility again.

I do not know what shape this new body will grow into. Perhaps I will be a spider princess. Perhaps not. But things will be different.


(written in the plane en route to Johannesberg)