(My name was Lone Star)

The naivete is almost gone-in a good way.

As we walk, I throw my head back when I laugh...loud enough to scare the nearby cat skulking in the alleyway into existence.

You can't frighten reality, but you can surprise it sometimes.

As we continued making our way down a wintery street, you told me that in the event of an avalanche, you should try and swim on top of it, doing the butterfly or the breast-stroke, to swim off to one side of it, to safety. Packed snow is so solid, but for those few, precious moments it becomes liquid lightning, something alive, deadly, and malleable. And you're there. Floating. Arms arcing up, over, cupping life, breathing out, breathing in, again.
And repeat.
And even if you sink, you said, just make sure you cross your arms over your chest, cupping an airhole around your face.

(I was part Uzahmati warrior tribe clanswoman)

And, encased in a dense wall of white, remember to breathe. Because you do, in fact, still have air.
Always remember to breathe.

(He looked worried the entire evening; am I too different? Has something he remembered died in my face? Because instead I feel renewed, refreshed, ready to rush and greet worlds with words and questions and solemn sweet silences. I feel more me than I've ever felt before.)

Even buried there, breathing, know there is a way up, you said. But you may not remember right away which was up is. How do you find your way back to the sun?

I look up from my feet, waiting. The answer is surprising, earthy, blunt:

You spit.

(I squint, is this a joke? Eyebrow cocked and loaded, waiting.)

You spit. The saliva will go down, towards gravity, the earth. You go away from whichever direction it goes. Go up. Even if it feels like down. Remember, gravity doesn't lie.

Always go up.

(I am a process, I am slowly dying and rebuilding and waiting and ready.)