Pure Baby and Sage Lady
Photo: AP / Edit: Me
Recently I've been turning to this idea of threading the "past, nascent me" with the "future, evolved me." Trying to know both a bit better. What do they love to do for fun? Do they have fears? What is their favorite time of day? Favorite colors? Favorite flavors?
I have already been my young self -and I know her so intrinsically- yet we've been separated by years of societal and environmental pressures and expectations. The little one is our most authentic expression of self. Our purest pursuit of joy. Our unabashed honesty.
I have yet to know my future self, but have the most comforting and magical time dreaming of her. All that I currently am is a mere building block of what she will be. She is possibility. But that word doesn't even seem to carry ample magnitude.
I think symbolically of the Twin Towers on the early morning of August 7, 1974, when Philippe Petit performed his awesome aerial feat. Just like the high-wire that Petit toed, our lives are anchored by two structures, both identical yet markedly distinct: the Pure Baby and Sage Lady.
~Right now, as I write this and as you read this, we find ourselves somewhere in-between~
We are Petit, who walks the line with his gaze focused neither on the building ahead nor behind (i.e. obsessed with who/what/where we will be in the future or the decisions we made in the past), but rightly on the present, immediate step. And our onward motion is propelled by our confident ties to both towers. Our life's wire is anchored securely and forever to both versions of us.
By cultivating and deepening a relationship with the Self, we gain a dynamic and unshakeable feeling of strength. When we feel mired in toxic mental clogs (especially by the siren songs of social media, coaxing us in with the lure of creative expression, but leaving us flailing in a toxic cesspool of comparison), I can now readily hear the voices of Baby and Lady affirming:
"I am as perfect as perfect should and must and truly can feel, right here."
