There was a morning
when I stood barefoot in the garden
long after the jasmine had finished blooming.
The air still carried its memory.
A hibiscus unfolded.
slowly,
without asking whether yesterday
had been difficult.
The lemon tree held another small green fruit,
the birds continued their impossible conversations,
and somewhere beneath the soil
roots kept doing
what roots have always done –
finding water
in places no one could see.
For years
I believed I was the one
carrying this body
As if my will
were the stronger force.
As if every mountain climbed,
every country crossed
every dream survived,
had happened because I kept moving forward.
Only now
do I understand.
It was never me
carrying this body.
It was my body
carrying me.
Patiently.
Through cities that never slept.
Through oceans.
Through departures that broke my heart
and arrivals that quietly rebuilt it.
Through nights
when grief settled into my bones
like winter rain,
and morning
when joy returned
without explanation.
It remembered how to breathe
on the days I forgot.
Its heart
never asked whether life
was worth another beat.
It simply chose me
again.
And again.
When my body
surrendered itself
to a silence
deeper than sleep,
I felt something unexpected.
No fear.
Recognition.
As though my body,
for the first time,
asked me to stop
long enough
to notice it.
Not for its strength.
Not for its beauty.
But for its endless devotion.
A steam,
I am learning,
is not the opposite of wholeness.
It is where life
stitched me
back into myself.
The tree does not mourn
the line.
It keeps growing.
Today
I run my fingers
across this changing landscape
with the tenderness
I once reserved
only for wild places.
Because this,
too,
is wilderness.
These rivers beneath my skin.
These tides of breath.
These constellations of freckles,
veins,
and healing.
How extraordinary
to spend a lifetime
inside a miracle
and only now
begin to introduce myself.
So this morning
I stood barefoot
a little longer.
The earth was warm.
The wind moved through the leaves
without needing to be seen.
Somewhere,
another flower
opened.
And beneath my ribs,
life—
ancient,
faithful,
wild—
opened too.
— Malwina Buldys
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