Once I thought like an aardvark; now, I think like an ant.

Once I was a ribbon; now I’m a big red bow.

Once I was a crimson chat; now I’m a condor.

Dogs bark at my door; together, we dance.

Everything is electric with ease. There is no edge.

Before, failure was my face.

I was a garden of grief.

In the halftime of my life, I’d sipped misery’s mist.

I was the inch-long inchworm, slowly increasing.

I was a jailed jewel.

My kayak almost tipped; my luck limped.

The macaque of my heart would not mend.

Nobody knew it, but I was a nervous nightjar.

My secret pain, tidal, like an ocean,

pain like saw palms waving in the cold:

my whole life a pop quiz

when the rain went river, went roar.

Suddenly, sadness sailed away on a sloop.

My tarnished teakettle glowed.

My ugly and useless umbrella blew away.

My vexing vamoosed—on vacation in Valencia.

What window had I climbed through?

The window of exuberance.

You can find it too...

all you have to do is loosen the zipper of fear.