I, like most of you, downloaded Instagram 10 years ago after a friend showed me her cute little filtered photos cultivated under a retro camera icon. I, like most of you, evolved with Instagram while it shifted, pivoted, took on new shapes. And here’s an important detail in my own relationship with it: I, like some of you, needed Instagram.
In the first 4 years I was an unhappily married woman, a mama to 3 little children, a christian yoga instructor cycling in a cult, a small time photographer. I was free-falling through my life; arms flailing for a rope to catch before I met the void. And, in some ways, Instagram was a ladder swinging for me out of nowhere, offering me sturdy rungs to wrap my arms and legs through. The first climb brought me closer to people who were also falling from the sky, nearly yanking their arms out of their sockets in order to grab a ladder, a rope, a net, anything at all. We were nodding hello once the pounding in our chests slowed, swapping stories while our limbs trembled, lighting matches in the dead of night to say, “I’m still here. You’re not alone. We’ll climb again in the morning.” For the first time in my life I was exchanging energy with people who were just as fragmented as I was, or at least willing to talk about it. And, baby, I won’t ever be ashamed to tell you how thoroughly I needed that.
Next I was a nearly feral lycanthrope creature shedding a lifetime of accumulated good girl skin, stepping steaming hot into frigid air and running up and down sheer mountain paths like my life depended on it. I was divorcing and deconstructing and howling from cliff caves carved into my ascent, rope ladder tied off to the side while I broke my own bones in order to be remade. Six and a half years of pouring poetry down jagged rock walls into waterfalls of soulblood, of waiting for mana every morning, of smacking sticks against rocks and demanding water. I was standing on the edge howling stories into the ether and you were howling back. Flickers of bonfires lit with our own shapeshifting sparks echoing through canyons and continents. And, my fellow wolves, I won’t ever stop telling you how heartmendingly I needed that.
I’ve been tapping into a body memory this week and it’s a strange one. Strange because it might not make much sense unless you recognize the smell of it, the soil-like texture of it, the myth fruit of it. Now bear with me because I’m going to go slightly off center into biblical realms for a minute, but it’ll be worth it. There’s a story in the Bible about a once banished, hero-villain of a man who becomes king. After years of running for his life, hiding in caves and holes in the ground, he’s now a man of power and status and luxury. He has everything he was promised, everything he could conquer, and yet his life is crumbling inside the stagnant, catacomb shaped arteries of a body that was truly made to wander. So there he is on the roof of his palace one night, looking out over a sleeping kingdom and somehow he finds himself writing a poem that goes something like, “if I could be a dove I’d fly away, back to the deserts and shelter from the storm. I’d fly away and be at rest.” Do you know where I’m going with this? There’s something about the caves we first shapeshift in. There’s something about the steady warmth of a fire we tended all alone in the wilderness; about the siren song of other self-liberating souls riding witch brooms on the wind until they land between our ribs to deliver seeds of stories we’ve been desperate to plant. There’s something that happens long after we’ve crawled all the way to the top, landed breathless and Cailleach-strong on a patch of new grass, built a steadier life that is finally and completely our own. The thing that happens is this: we realize the destination we had in mind was simply one of survival and, now that we’re here, it seems so gratefully not enough. I think the hero-villain king was unsatisfied with a life that had gone perfectly, slowly off course once he’d summited his own mountain.
But back to my own story because biblical kings are only supporting characters (it’s the few queens you want to really pay attention to).
After I’d scrambled and clawed and dragged myself from a tame life into a feral life and then into a wild one, I stepped across a threshold and became something else, something equally true, but … different. I eventually stood on the cliff edge of a mountain that had saved my life and realized there is so much more to live and I won’t ever find it if I just stay. Don’t get me wrong, it took a while to catch the full view. I spent a few years learning how to stay; building a home, planting a garden, raising my babies into taller, wilder creatures. I rested where I landed; planted all the stories Instagram gave me and watched them fruit up soft, vivid, medicinal. I seasoned here, greyed here, forged new grooves across my face here. I became The Mother here and I cannot tell you how eternally I needed that.
It’s occurred to me in these first new days since leaving Instagram that, if I were telling strange and unbelievable truths, I might settle into the orange chair at my favorite coffee shop (where I currently am), cup an African rose tea between my strong hands, and tell you very matter of factly: I’ve accepted that I will forever be part werewolf. Maybe you’d blink, giggle, wait for my mouth to quirk to the side. But all along the 10 year climb I have stuffed weird truths into the corners of me and if I were to let one out I certainly wouldn’t diminish it with a laugh. So I’d sip my hot tea and tell you again: I will forever be part lycanthrope-wild. That part of me is tucked between the ribs of my life, nestled into quiet little folds, until the full moon blooms and I am again (this time willingly, although painfully) remade into teeth, fur, and howling creation rising from my pulsing sacral chakra. I am what I am. And I am not a king standing on the roof of a palace longing for a wild I can’t return to. I am not lamenting or writing poetry about wanting to run away while a kingdom spreads sleeping and dark around me. I am a woman who carries a single, simple question in her pocket, pulls it out like a compass every time a crossroad spreads wide at my feet: which risk? Which risk am I going to take? The risk of staying on this achieved ascent for the rest of my life because it is quite simply where I landed? Or the risk of testing out my welcomed shapeshifting skills, leaping from a new edge to see what wings might snap from me mid-flight, setting out for the next right thing with the earned realization that I don’t have to. I get to choose this time. I get to choose every time after this.
I needed Instagram until I didn’t. And, if you haven’t caught on yet, this isn’t just about Instagram (a good story is rarely that direct or that one dimensional). A year from now maybe you’ll remember that I told you I was going to start leaping, start catching new scents to follow, start wandering again, and I’ll bet you’ll realize that this new platform is where I’ve left a map of it all. What Instagram gave me wasn’t just the fast-paced, escalating distribution of new ideas that taught me how to climb, rest, transform, and pull my own self from the wreckage of a first terrifying free fall. It was the stories, the matches flickering in the dark, the bonfires stoked from mountain caves, the hands at my back, the shouted reminders that this won’t last forever. It was the people, the shapeshifting wanderers who were willing to travel alongside me through those 10 years, who changed me most. It was the story-seeds I still have gently wrapped inside secret folds of my heart, waiting to be planted somewhere new. And I can’t tell you how wholeheartedly I will forever need that.
“Which risk?” YES. Just beautiful. I love you, I love this new journey. I am excited to be here. Thank you.
"I am a woman who carries a single, simple question in her pocket, pulls it out like a compass every time a crossroad spreads wide at my feet: which risk?"
Oh sweet fuck, my lady. Oh, sweet fuck.
There she is.