Wild Soft

When I was a kid my dad had this little box of rocks he would let me play with. They looked like ordinary rocks. grayish, tannish, beige. But when you held them under black light, they transformed. Each one was flecked with fluorescence. Hot pink. Electric orange. A yellow that looked like it would be cold to the touch. A harsh, astringent green. A dim glowy violet that seemed to pull in light and give it off at the same time.

I haven’t thought about those rocks in a long time, but the memory of them came swooping back when I took this picture the other day. I realized that maybe the reason I’m craving fluorescence lately has something to do with my astonishment as a kid at seeing those normal-looking rocks turn extraordinary under a specific kind of light.

Maybe I keep reaching for these colors because I’m wondering how we can create exactly the right conditions for people’s hidden fluorescence to emerge. Maybe I’m making direct contact with the bodily sensation of letting myself be seen—really, deeply seen—by the small handful of people on the planet who can catalyze the truest version of my glow.

The ambient light of this culture doesn’t do it for most of us. It’s like bad mall lighting—reflecting us back to ourselves in our flattest, dullest forms. Between the crush of big oppressions and the constant hum of micro stresses, it feels like there’s a kind of energetic smog settling over everything these days that keeps us from experiencing our vibrance. Our lush and brilliant weirdness. Our full aliveness.

The people I admire most are the ones who know how to help other humans uncover the incandescent parts of themselves that are hiding in plain sight. The folks who are asking: how can we be each other’s black light? How can we be our own?