There is a whole city of birds outside my house. Maybe in their sense of geography it's a county. I'm not quite sure. There's highways and red lights and green ones just outside that. I can hear the hum of the future from here. I am in between, in a village of trees, bisected by a wending road whose tires I wonder if they feel rolling just above their roots.

I haven't felt myself lately. Rage runs like a river. Sadness an electric stream from my shoulder to my wrist. Fear aches my back. Worry a persistent pulse at the space between my eyebrows. Frustration clenches the jaw, over and over again. Everything begging to be released.

And then I find the sliver of morning sunlight. A perfect square on the cement sidewalk. I let it wash me like a shower. I hear the crows tell the others where breakfast is, watch them eat orange flowers as the moon watches from above. Maybe. Maybe she has her own list of lunar business to take care of.

Everything feels a little better. A little brighter. A little more like I can carry it all inside.

Like the sun, people who need you will find you and bask in your brightness. But I am remembering, from some ancient place, that brightness doesn't have to mean our perceived definitions of goodness. It doesn't have to mean peace, or joy, or a constant bubbling of belly laughter and infinite romance.

Maybe your brightness is the refreshing, crisp air of your courage to speak truth. Maybe your vulnerability in feeling rage ignites a fire someone didn't know they still had. Maybe your propensity for quiet lulls them like the waves of the ocean. Maybe your willingness to show your worry and fear brings humanity back to their life.

Light is also lightning and fire and a spotlight and it is also stars and explosions and the soft glow of a reading lamp.

I am apologizing to my light for trapping her in a box of expectation. I am no longer here for punishing myself when I feel like I am not embodying the one shade of light I believe I "should."

To my light, who are you? I am sorry I have not been willing to meet you. I am ready now.

I am ready to be all of it.