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group to explore. I was loath to come off as rude or ungrateful, but unsure how much I

wanted to share this with others. The readings and instructional workshops were full of
earth-shattering provocations and mind-bending explorations, and I worried socializing

too much would compromise my ability to go inward, to do all that self-improvement
internal growing that would theoretically result in an improvement in craft. Because that

wasn’t enough to fill my worry-plate, I worried that meeting people from other walks of
life was part of the point in being here, and I was resisting.

I met the other fellowship recipients for lunch. We took each other in, comparing stories

and imposter syndromes. There, in the eyes of everyone, my other!

The lesson I was here to learn rose from the grounds like mist. To be. Part of. An

earthquake ripped through my heart. I issued a cease and desist to the tug-of-wars raging
inside my mind. How would I do this thing, this being of me? My identities had always

been prescribed to me by others. How to unbury the indigenous, so long dormant under
all that had been imported from elsewhere? Did it even exist?

In this daze I shuffled forward through the week. I decided my direction minute by

minute. I ducked in and out – of groups, of conversations, of star-gazing gatherings and

campfire songs. At the baths, I engaged in long intimate talks with strangers, asking
sweeping cosmic questions I asked only because I was simmering naked on the edge of a

cliff. Laying bare is somehow easier when laying bare. When I needed stillness and
silence, the ocean opened its arms.

We gathered on the deck wedged between the great big blue of the Pacific and the majestic

slopes of a remote California coastline, a stack of animal cards between us. We pulled. My

animal stared from the crook of my palm. My hand burned with the urge to return him to
the silent, unknown folds.

The card read: An unresolved issue around self-image and success. Am I who my

audience thinks I am? What if I am ready to grow into something more?

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