My place smells of guava and lavender and it’s got me thinking about some of the best parts of my childhood. Memories I’d long since forgotten, memories embedded in my embodied body that I finally felt connected enough to tap into.

It’s the scent of guava that did it for me, its subtle flavor snaking through the air. I step inside my place and I’m transported to another realm…here I am walking with reckless abandon to the river again. It’s all green around me with an ever-present breeze and an open sky, blue and brilliant, that makes everything it touches sparkle.

Here I am, alone with my aliveness, with time as mine, no one to answer to, everyone is off doing their own thing and my thing is to carry water, but no one tells me how to do it, so I take my time. I twirl through fields of flowers, move my finger bones over fresh fruits, and feel sorry for the chickens locked in their coops.

I climb trees, give sermons to Hibiscus bushes, listen to the birds, throw half eaten guavas to the cows, and it’s like this that we share the land together. That was my medicine then. That was the therapy, that was the antidote for the aliveness

Lately I’ve been fantasizing about my future home. Not the things I want inside, but the things I want outside it—the land, I want land for trees of my own. Maybe a few chickens and roosters to chase. I guess I’m trying to capture that poetry of place.