Lilly was a girl who found her tribe was nature itself. She wasn’t a hippy but she had a way of communicating and thriving on a, shall we say a floral level, more than the most of us. In any big city she would pause extra long passing by a flower shop. She’d say, ‘I’m breathing real air’. She could negotiate this tough new world while slowly it choked her.

Damage is the obvious reason. Damage from disappointment learned too early. Destined now to make crummy choices, to veer toward that which is toxic and crippling.

Perversely, the goal is to play the entire game again, from start to finish, every pass and fail, until it’s done right. As laborious as weaving threads to make your own Bayeux tapestry whereby you see the entirety of the story. The goal is vanquishment. True freedom.

Victorious over all demons. Those from whence, Lilly for example, was too small to protect herself. She learned from every whipping, each humbling. The wounds healed but scars were forever visible lank like snakes in the yellow tresses she wore to her waist.

She fell for this one and that one, always for the wrong reasons. For their looks. For their pushiness which she misinterpreted for passion. All that! It must be love, right?

And they each cut her and cut her down with words. One went so far as to machete the plants she grew, these her friends who she loved. They all made her cry. Each in turn disregarded her tiny wants and requests.

It was painful, no doubt, she got her fingertips squished many a-time. But it was the obstacle course that is life that she had to complete one step after another. No one knew her strength, her sure-footedness. No one except her, Lilly the girl who could canoe out to sea in the middle of the night and swim with the dolphins.

Game won she cut free. Thus she made her garden in paradise.