Born from ashes,
bathed in dirt,
I rise into a sky
that requires
iron wings to fly.
Ashes | Barbara Garay © 2018
Inevitably, we all will experience the moment our face meets ground, our soul swims deep within the ashes, and our embers begin to lose their spark as they start to extinguish. Part of being alive is experiencing the moment we’ve hit rock bottom. But it is in this moment that we realize our fate is in our hands and what comes next is determined by our reaction to it. This is a large vein that gives life to my thoughts. It is also a large theme in most of my poems. Because, this is an ideal I imbue my life with.
I approach the tragedies of my life knowing that what follows from the bottom is to go back up. The opposite of a fall is always to stand back up. There is another option, of course, but that is not an option at all for me anymore. And writing is the way that I heal and the way that I take myself out of that darkness.
But over my many falls, I’ve actually grown to embrace the fall as the most beautiful moment of all. It is in that moment that you truly understand who-you-are. It is in that moment that you truly understand the depths of your resilience and the strength of your will-to-fight and will-to-live. Amor fati, baby. Love your fate. You can’t change it, but you can bloom so beautifully from it as you control the way you react to it.
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