Escape implies there’s a clean exit, but most of life isn’t about leaving—it’s about turning toward something with full attention. I see it in labour: a woman can’t escape the pain, but she can stop resisting it, let it move through her, and find the power in that surrender. We’re not trapped in some grand sense; we’re entangled, embedded, part of the weather and the dark and the weight of being needed. Freedom isn’t a border you cross. It’s showing up without flinching, like a mother in the third stage, exhausted and awake, holding what just came through. That’s not escape. That’s arrival.
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