Sometimes I don’t have language for the thing that rises up inside of me. It curls like a tendril of steam and disappears before I even have a chance to capture it. If I manage to cup my hand around it, I unclench my fingers to see what’s there and it’s already changed. All that’s left is a little moisture on my palm, and it too evaporates.

I’ve learned that nothing is permanent. Nothing sacred can be held on to.

I post photographs on Instagram and write captions beneath them, but pixels and words aren’t a measure of my life.

The thing I can’t speak or write or even photograph—the thing that rises up my spine and opens my heart is silent.

I can try to open my mouth to speak about it, or touch pen to paper to put language around it; I can even attempt to capture it through my camera’s viewfinder, but everything will fall short. Nothing will stick.

The stillness is a wordless, unseeable thing. This used to frustrate me, and sometimes it still does, but now there are more and more moments when I let go of striving. Paradoxically, it’s in these moments that I am the closest to understanding.

The thing I keep grasping for is already within me.

There is no searching that needs to be done: only an uncovering of what’s already there. An opening. An expanding of my heart to this moment before it too slips away.