The miouroung, or southern sea elephants, spend a whole month snuggling. This after a breeding season is already over and done. Just a platonic month of spooning with relatives and friends. They press right up onto each other on the beach and mostly nap. And this is all they do for an entire month. No hunting, mating, or territory struggles, just snuggling like a full-time job. And during this time they shed their skin. They become silver and new. At the end of the month, they will swim off one by one and spend most of their time 2,000 feet underwater eating, but for now all there is to do is sleep off who we were.
There are layers of myself I need to shed now. And rest is the only way to be renewed. One month of Summer I'll be home, becoming something iridescent, vulnerable, older and new.
And you?
Thank you for all the forms of intimacy that teach me what my skin is not and what my armor never was. I wish for you the sacredness of rest, expansive sprawling rest uninterrupted. I love the part of you that is emerging under everything. You deserve to rest long enough to let whatever go. I put my skin right next to yours to let you know that even when you seem alone, I'm with you. And I will wait to see the silver next of you, before you dive again.
