the specific little groan of the floorboards when Soleil leaps down from her perch, it's a sound that used to make me flinch, like a precursor to something breaking, a signal for bracing, but now it’s just… information, just another texture in the air, another proof that things are moving, living, even when the air feels thick with whatever else is happening outside these walls, a choice really, to not let that thickness seep inside, to keep the internal landscape clear, unburdened, the way my hands feel so naturally open now, not reaching, not grasping, just available, a different kind of strength in that, a readiness to just receive whatever comes, the difficult alongside the beautiful, a kind of belonging that doesn’t demand certainty, just presence, and that feels like a huge exhale, a deep expansion in my chest that settles everything right down into the ground beneath my feet