to love what is imperfect
Loving something beautiful is easy. The desert is sheer physical beauty and a spiritual gorgeousness that winds through the arroyos and canyons. Maybe my big lesson in coming to Philadelphia is learning to love what is imperfect, and then, turning that unconditional love upon myself. Perhaps it's no mere gypsy's chance that has landed me in a place with the word Delphi as part of it. The Oracle at Delphi was a seer who saw tragedy and whispered the fortunes of future generations.

Philadelphia is like my baptism by concrete and dust, angry attitudes and outright decay. So my lesson is learning to love the piss in the alleyways, the smoky cigar bars, the gangster men with their swagger and talk, the clotted highways, and twisted little trees on city avenues. My mother held me by the ankles and dipped me into Philadelphia* to make me strong, to give me a ferocity that was more than words or a willingness to fight. My tendon shows where her hand has been; it'll be the softest, desert part of me that remains. Until I am free. Until I am home again.

I will learn every lesson and face every ugliness and endeavour, simply, to love. I will love when it is not easy. I will love. I will love.

jewel

* This is a reference to Achilles; he was dipped in a tar-like mixture to make him invincible. He was, except for the tendon so named for him. Eventually, an arrow pierced that place, and he died. I don't plan to die here.