The self is not a portrait but a garden — overgrown, seasonal, constantly composting old selves into new growth. What you press between these pages is already becoming something else.
field note no. 001 — spring equinoxThe broad symmetrical leaf — stable, outward-facing, photosynthesizing approval. This is the self that stands in sunlight and calls it home. Pressed flat by the weight of being seen.
habitat: public spaces, lit roomsA closed bud — all potential, all protection. The self that exists only in the humid dark between thought and speech. It will never open fully. That is its beauty.
habitat: unlit rooms, margins of journalsIdentity is taxonomy without a kingdom. We classify ourselves into drawers we built from memory and hope, then wonder why nothing quite fits the labels we've pinned through our own stems.
field note no. 002 — on classificationThe root system — hidden, anchoring, drawing water from depths the leaves will never see. Every surface self is fed by what lives in the dark soil. The shadow is not the enemy; it is the mycorrhiza.
habitat: below the surface, alwaysA seed pod — splitting open, scattering futures in every direction. The self that does not yet exist but insists on becoming. Each seed carries a different possible person to a different possible soil.
habitat: the near future, wind-carriedYou are not one pressed flower but an entire herbarium. The quest is not to find the true specimen but to tend the collection — to notice what's fading, what's still vivid, what was pressed so long ago you've forgotten which garden it came from.
field note no. 003 — on multiplicity