JESSE IHDE

Thick & Thin

Thick and thin is what this life is. I hold inside of me the seasons of darkness as well as the Life of Light. I do not shed who I used to be; I hold her dear to me. That gone girl is not gone. She holds a page in my book.

Her shadows are what make her. I can smell her Menthol Milds and her Marlboro Lights in her black and white hair. I taste her sensuality and her rebellion. She is thrashing about to find her way. And there is no other way into the Essential Deep but to go. Go all the way in.

I can see her still lying down on the dark cold concrete in her black Dior boots. They could not see that even then she was praying. Praying to see herself. Praying to be seen. Her mascara smudge was no debauchery; those were tears. Longings inside her eyes kicking their way out past the coal eyeliner.

That brave girl faced herself there in the darkness. Forgave herself there in the darkness. Received the Spirit’s word: there is no where you will go that I will not come for you.

Thick and thin; she went in again. Into the Essential Deep to find herself once more. The gift of tears lighting her way. She made room for uncertainty. She made room for herself. She made room for her voice. She made room for the darkness to hold space with the light.

If you can’t see all of her you won’t see her at all.

Thick and thin. Deep and wide. Separate and connected. Doubt and belief. Calm and crazed. Petals and thorns. Water and fire. Thick and thin. She goes in again. Into the Essential Deep.