Stretch & Fold

A meditation on defiance and blooming

Poppy, for peace

To sleep, I recite the names of flowers. Evening Primrose. Sweet William. False Indigo. I page through a book of botanicals, examining the shapes of petals, the intricate structures of stamens, protective sepals, the graceful drape of stems. I fall in love with florals night after night. Queen Anne’s Lace. Yellow Flag. Jewel Weed. And as I read, I feel my pulse slow, my heart steady. The rabbit-paced world begins to sigh and stretch, and finally, as though I have been casting a spell, I fold into sleep.

Wild Sage, for wisdom

You are only as strong as you are rested.

The antidote to overwhelm is more nothingness.

I carry these idioms with me in the pocket of my heart. Take them out and worry them like stones in my palm.

Everywhere I turn, everyone all around me is coming apart a little bit at the seams, all of us stretched a little bit beyond our limits. I feel desperate to escape, to fold inward. Do you feel it too?

My husband walks through the door at night and says, We should move. But to where? I turn off the radio. Refuse to open the news app I pay for monthly. It is a privilege to tune out the noise. In the quiet I dream of getting lost in the woods. I imagine becoming a different sort of animal, pelted and sleek, able to vanish in tall grass and shadow.

How will we bear what is to come? And in the meantime, what good can I do?

To be strong, I will rest.

To quiet my mind, I will be very, very still.

Thistle, for endurance

Have you ever been punched in the mouth? Shaken against the ground, an earthquake of fury confined by a skein of fruit skin. Delicate to burst. I am 4 years old, my throat wrapped in my father’s fingers. He is stretching and folding my body into a shape I cannot yet name. I carry this memory in my bones. I do not want to forget. It has helped make me who I am. And that “am” is not “Victim.” Nor “Survivor.”

I want to say to the world, Do not name me. I will name myself.

I listen to a podcast about lost boys. An old white man says boys are orchids. Girls are dandelions. I think of my brother who could not withstand the world. One needle too many left him cold on the bathroom floor. My father, lost to despair, dying slowly on the sofa of my childhood home. In their wake, my mother and I are wooden, sturdy as an invasive species. Some of us have no choice but to survive.

I am 14, craning my neck to view a blooming bruise on the back of my arm. My mother stretches my sleeve over the wound, folds her hand into the small of my back. Keep moving, she whispers. Don’t let anyone see.

Abuse begins in the light, but it thrives in the dark.

I am 7 years old, riding my bike with pale pink tassels. “Princess” is written in curled letters across the fender. My father sits heavily in a lawn chair at the mouth of the garage. As I ride past, I say, Daddy, am I a princess? He swills beer 2,346. No, he says. You’re an asshole.

Quietly, barely breathing, I stash my bike. I steal into my bedroom, and fold myself away.

Do not name me. I will name myself. I am not Victim. Not Survivor. Asshole. Adult Child of an Alcoholic. I am not defined by Perfectionist. Type A. Stressball. So who am I? I am…Strong. Resilient. Sensitive. Creative. Both Dandelion and Orchid. I am a Cosmos. A Thistle in the field. I am like the name of a novelty hand lotion I was once gifted. Delicate Fucking Flower.

Ranunculus, for dazzling charms

Make flowers, says the CEO. Not in so many words, rather an unspoken language. Something akin to mycelium. Invisible, threading below the surface. I think, Maybe this is how trees speak. Private messages beneath our feet, defying physics. Make flowers, my heart hears him say. And then, to drive home his point, Look at you.

He is speaking, I presume, of the glow. That sunshine sensation blooming from creativity. I feel like a child sharing something precious, too innocent to know that I am opening myself to attack. Daddy! Am I a princess! But he does not attack. He accepts the gift, offers one in return. Encouragement.

In the morning, I sit at my desk. I make a template from cardboard. A single petal for a ranunculus. A buttercup, of which there are more than a thousand species. I cut a petal from pale pink crepe paper. I stretch and then fold the shape, watching it curl into life.

In Victorian floriography, a ranunculus is given to say, I am dazzled by your charms.

Make flowers, he says without saying. Make flowers. And so, I do.

Primrose, for innocence

I am 12 years old. I am what everyone calls a tom boy. I prefer to climb trees, to dig in the mud, to run wild through the fields with the children who want to run wild with me.

A neighbor looks at my sunburn with disgust, her own milky child peeking around wide hips. Go inside, she says, and shakes her head as she disappears into the cold shadows of her house. I hear the lock click into place before I skip back into the Texas blaze, pedaling as fast I might up and down our dead end street. I would rather be with the dogs and the cicadas, outstretched on the hard-packed earth, pockmarked with tunnels older than I am. My brother and I collect the discarded armor. At the end of the summer a shoe box brims with alien shells.

I am 44 years old. And still someone is always saying something like, Go inside. Do this. Be that. Don’t do that and don’t be this. But I am still that child craving abandon, a forever restless desire to fling myself into life. We are here to have a human experience. I think of this hunger as an electrical current connecting the somatic and the spiritual. Like the mycelium of unspoken words uttered between hearts.

Sometimes I feel it in the woods, while admiring splatters of lichen on tree trunks. When the bright sky in the middle of the night shines with icy stars, the moon a glowing face sliding across its sea. When I peer into the center of a flower, the delicate whorl of sticky sex parts dreaming of pollinators. I press the flower to my lips, desiring its flesh on my flesh. I want to eat the bloom and I want to be the bloom. I want to be the pristine prick of starlight, the seafoam green lace stretched across a tree trunk.

If I have a religion it is that of Mother Earth.

Daisy, for new beginnings

I bake bread. For days I tend a sourdough starter, watching for it to peak. When the levain finally floats in room temp water, I mix my dough in a wide Pyrex dish dotted in daisies. I prefer the stretch and fold method to kneading. I pull the corners of the dough and tuck them into the center, turning the bowl to repeat the process. Strands of protein begin to bond, each stretch of the dough increasing elasticity, each fold encouraging stronger bonds. Stretch and fold. Together they turn slop into structure. Stretch and fold. The simplicity defies expectation. It takes longer but it's gentler. And with that time the flavor of the loaf deepens. Where else might I apply this wisdom? Less effort for more profound effect.

Cosmos, for harmony

I stand before my students. Place one hand on your heart. One hand on your belly. Take a big breath in. The heart lifts. The belly expands. Let the breath go. The heart softens. The belly deflates. These are centers of life force. Shared vitality. We breathe together, and then together we move. We stretch and fold our bodies in a meditation of movement. In this space I share whatever words of comfort occur to me. Trust your heart. Be true to your integrity. Seek ease alongside the effort. Find your drishti. Defy the world and open your heart.

Lavender, for devotion

I wake before dawn to wrap floral wire. I cut and roll and twist stamens. I clip my own confetti to act as pollen. At night I trim petals by the light of Netflix. I stretch and fold the delicate shapes and marvel as a flat thing curls into something lifelike. I glue the pieces together and at first my flowers are rudimentary, rough around every edge, but as the weeks pass, each bloom grows in grace. Day after day, I defy the demands of the world. I work. I answer email. I wash dishes and walk my dogs. I teach yoga and clean my house. I pay the bills. And…I stretch and fold time so that I may make flowers. It feels like magic.

I prick my fingers. I burn the sides of my hands. I cut accidental slits into my pant legs, sometimes my skin, too. My house is littered in a rainbow of scrap paper. And slowly, my office becomes a garden of paper flowers. I can only describe this garden as coming Home.

Peony, for love

I find myself comparing my flowers to those of artisans who have been crafting for years. I am dismayed by the perfection of their creations. Next to theirs mine look elementary.

I know that comparison is the death of joy. I try to remember that I owe it to my artistry to love and accept it for what it is—but to do so I must defy the mandate of the world, for it is built on falsities.

So this is what I wish for you. My darling friends. If you find yourself judging your work, step back, take a breath. Seek the pause between the stimulus and the reaction.

Our creations do not exist to be experienced in comparison. They want only to be taken for the grace and the beauty and joy that they alone can offer. They are perfect in their imperfection, just as are You, even as perfection does not exist, and is in fact a form a violence.

Each day that we are lucky enough to wake, we are a phoenix. We are as stunning as a fully bloomed peony, soft and strong, stretched and folded, withstanding sun and storm. You and I exist in defiance, and at the heart of that flame is the only fuel that matters. Love.

My wish for you is to create, and to celebrate that creation. Stretch your imagination. Fold it into the center of your heart’s desire. Together let us see what will bloom.