Rebirth is coming back into yourself after losing yourself to trauma. Over the last few years I lost pieces of myself little by little. I was drowning on the verge of going under. I abandoned my passions, I abandoned myself. I was terrified to pull myself out of my ocean of self pity and hatred, but also I grew tired of treading through the turmoil of my trepid mind. After your life falls apart the only way to is up or never come back out. I dragged myself out before the rugged waves could take me under. When I arose I woke up in a field of flowers. I finally saw the beauty of the world again. The flowers - a soft embrace the sun - a light at the end of a dark tunnel This gentle flower field was my inspiration. Words by Julie Torres & Zowie Fox Photos, Styling and Makeup: Julie Torres Model: Zowie Fox — JULIE TORRES / BELOIT, WI
THERE IS NO OTHER VERSION OF THIS STORY (JOYEUSE) We went to the museum today and watched two kids pretending to sword fight near the medieval knights exhibit. You smiled at me, smiling at them, and a photographer behind us caught the whole thing. I wonder if he knows the depth of the moment he captured– how loving you is a process that has taken me years to navigate and how your gentle touch on the small of my back in the corner of the room alongside the Renaissance paintings was the greatest gift I could have received that day. There have been lifetimes of moments that lead to this one, gentle breath…this one chance at your eyes meeting mine, whispering my name and motioning me over beside you… “By Charlemange’s side it hung, and never was there a sword to match it,” I read from the label beneath the blade, the one you called me over to see. And I am thinking about how you make me believe in reincarnation. There is no way that my soul didn’t recognize you when we first met, after years and years, decades and centuries of meeting and re-meeting. I have known you since before this weapon was crafted and I am knowing you now, 800 years later, as it sits behind glass and a few warm, humming lights. There are some stories too vast to be contained. There is too much to say about all the things I am unsure of. But there is no other version of this story — of you, and me, and Joyeuse hanging on the wall. The blade that was merely legend for years, and like a miracle you and I shoulder to shoulder standing before it. — GRACE USLEMAN / NASHVILLE, TN
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