this is the lifetime you rewrite the record

a circle, a cage, and the truth i finally stopped apologizing for

ensō, a japanese zen symbol and new substack publication logo. a long time in the making.

we don’t always get to choose what happens to us.

as we are growing up and learning how to speak up and stand up for ourselves, things happen that are out of our control.

we come into the world at the mercy of it, and in the process we are violated in countless ways and our sovereignty is stripped, little by little, or in big gashes too.

and it isn’t always forceful or brutal. sometimes it is subtle and insidious.

our inner knowing exchanged for doubt.

our inner boundaries exchanged for permission.

permission for what we never asked for.

permission to carry what was never ours to hold.

permission to be complicit in a silence we never agreed to.

and who can honestly say they didn’t experience some form of this too?

think of all the cultures obliterated, massacred, destroyed, along with their elders, their traditions, their wisdom, their voice.

what got rewritten…

what record was allowed to exist, and what was silenced instead.

but this is the lifetime where we get to turn it all around. this is the lifetime we get to choose freedom instead.

“resistance is her word. what does it mean to you?”

a line from my song i’ve included at the end of this piece.

what does resistance look like for you?

for me, this week, it looked like a circle. the one now sitting at the top of this very publication, my new logo, though it isn’t really new at all.

i saw the shape once on my son’s jiu jitsu pants and something in me just knew i wanted to use it for a logo one day.

the painted circle is called an ensō, a japanese zen symbol. it’s a circle painted in a single breath, one continuous brushstroke. in zen tradition it represents enlightenment, the void, and the present moment, imperfections and all.

the gap where the brush lifts is left open on purpose, as nothing is ever fully finished. the opening allows you to be a work in progress, still becoming.

and gold, to me, represents alchemy, turning pain into wisdom. the buried treasure we find when we are patient. gold is sunlight and heart frequency and the love from the mineral kingdom, all in one.

i had asked the photographer who did my branding photos, if she could help me build it out as my logo, but at that time i had no real business plan, and little did i know that our entire relationship would go up in smoke, just like the one with my producer, her husband.

but i have decided to use this logo for my substack publication anyway.

trusting that my dreams to one day be of service to humanity can happen bit by bit. and that the twists and turns and dead ends along the way were never the destination, they were part of the journey.

the next part of my journey is looking like starting a second master’s degree when i move to spain in a few months, a master’s in corporate communication and digital media, taught entirely in spanish.

new skills, a new community, and a language i’ve been reaching towards for years, finally becoming fully mine instead of just conversational.

just like i did with my italian when i got my first degree from the university of padua. it was over twenty years ago, but i have always loved being a student, it’s partly why i became an elementary teacher too.

with this new move and this new chapter i am writing, after losing my husband to cancer and all the rest that emerged during this time of healing, i am learning how to carry everything i've already built with my own two hands. the branding, the writing, the reclaiming.,so that one day i can help other people, other businesses, do the same thing for themselves.

helping people reclaim their truth and tell their story matters.

we need more authentic stories of triumph and struggle, not curated highlight reels.

we need to understand why we do what we do, and then find the courage to change course when it stops matching our own morals.

we need a new world, and more businesses and corporations with it, built on something more than financial gain.

we must build it on an actual code of ethics, on equity for all, on the same code martin luther king jr. spent his life demanding of a country that wasn't ready to give it, in his "i have a dream" speech and so many more.

king was just one of countless others throughout history. and for every name we know, there are thousands we don’t. for there have always been those willing to stand up in the face of injustice to tell their story.

just like we are doing here on substack. we are telling our stories, and using our collective voices to stand for our truth.

this is how we begin to change the narrative, one reclamation story at a time.

i have come to realize that for me, reclaiming this logo from a season of betrayal and heartbreak is how i do it for myself personally. i believe we can’t help others until we learn to help ourselves.

self love comes first.

this meant going back to the very beginning of this logo’s story.

around that time, i was working with my producer on my first album, birth of venus. his wife had already done the photoshoot for the album and the three of us found a studio space for sale that felt like a dream come true.

they were broke, so i was the one who put down the financial liability to buy it, paying for everything with finn’s life insurance payout, and asking only for a work trade of hours in return.

the first day we went to see it, before any of it started, there was a dead bird on the doorstep. a little yellow goldfinch. gold, like the circle we were about to design together. i didn’t think much of it then. just a small, sad thing on a stoop.

one of them looked at me, knowing i pay attention to signs, and asked if i thought it was a bad omen.

no, i said. birds are a symbol of hope for me. i have them tattooed along my neck. they represent finn, and how he visits me with birds of prey since he died. i think it’s a sign to move forward, i had replied.

but since it all crumbled, i’ve often thought back on that conversation. and how even they sensed the foreboding nature of it. how i turned it around anyway, into hope, into encouragement, the same way i have turned every hard thing in my life around.

always finding the gold in the rough. the lotus that grows from the mud. it’s my whole identity, really.

i wonder sometimes if that instinct, the reflex to turn every hard sign into hope, always find the silver lining, is a gift or a blind spot. maybe it was always both.

so when i began to wake up to the fact that the relationship was feeling very one-sided, i asked them to move things around in the studio space so i could have a desk there too. i thought asking for that one small, fair thing wouldn’t be a big deal.

i was wrong.

a few weeks later, a bird cage appeared by her new desk, a decorative figurine bird inside it, meant to look cute. it showed up right after i’d asked to make things more equitable, and they both got really upset about it. like who was i to try and make things feel fair?

chills went down my spine when i saw it. i had felt like a caged bird for most of my life, long before that studio, long before any of them, and there it was, arriving the exact moment i asked for a little more room of my own.

around that same time, he helped me produce one of the last songs we made together before it all fell apart. little did i know i was writing about the very thing happening all around me.

i called the song ‘her resistance.’

if resistance were a bird, i wrote, she’d fly right through.

i meant it as a wish back then, something i hoped for her, hoped for myself, without quite believing either of us could actually do it.

i didn’t yet know how to fly through anything.

i was still asking permission to leave the cage.

since i was getting nothing back but a work trade, i had started to wonder how i was supposed to receive any real value from this setup, if i didn’t feel safe emotionally in the space. how could i, once i started to sense i was being used?

in the end i chose to resell the studio. it cost me more than the financial loss on paper. it was a huge loss of so much, relationships with those i once trusted, the loss of a dream.

i lost a lot of money to people who were happy to take it, there and elsewhere, across those years, because i was still operating from the wound.

the people closest to me growing up had taught me that carrying someone else’s darkness was my job, that staying silent was my role.

so of course i handed my money and my power to whoever sounded confident enough to take it.

after it was all done, i still have my dignity and my creativity intact. i paid for those images and that music myself, in full. and in addition to this, i have the peace of mind that i own all the rights from that chapter, every last bit of it.

a cage is still a cage until you wake up and fly through the open door.

“she knows in her heart, it takes darkness to see the stars…”

another line from that same song.

i didn’t fully understand it then, but i understand it now.

it took darkness to find my light.

it’s the same phrase kamala harris used in her concession speech.

and it’s the same with my family, who i don’t speak to anymore.

i know what it is to have someone try to erase what actually happened.

“she’s got nothing more to lose. it’s a fight she can’t win, she’s at home in her skin. she can still sing the blues.”

at the end of it all, i am not comparing myself to king or anyone who has ever fought and lost everything for telling the truth.

i am still alive, and i have never been persecuted for the color of my skin. i am only saying i recognize the shape of oppression, because i have lived inside a small version of it.

i don't get to change anyone's mind who no longer walks beside me.

i only get to live my own version of my truth and i get to tell about it, out loud, on my own terms.

someone once tried to make me forget. but i went back anyway, for all of what once got left behind.

for all of the precious parts of that little girl who was me, before anyone tried to make her smaller.

i’d bet someone somewhere maybe tried to make you forget your truth too, somewhere along the way, just as the world’s empires have always tried to do, to anyone willing and courageous enough to take a stand.

“revolution is her fate. what does it mean to you? if revolution had a face, she’s smiling down from the moon.”

here is a recording of the song this piece kept returning to:

let’s start a self love revolution.

it’s my mantra, and my personal manifesto.

it’s also my call to action, for anyone else ready to take it all back, and never ever apologize for existing again.

---

if any part of this is your story too, i'd love to hear it. and if you're ready to start going back for your own pieces, i'd love to walk that path with you.

i am a writer, speaker, and musician devoted to healing and embodiment. i share essays, poetry, and original music through venus consciousness. 💞