We have arrived at the Summer Solstice, when exhausted mania reaches its peak. Midsummer begs us to be reckless. Violent, impulsive war-mongers express unregulated sun glut. Light gets into everything, and there’s nowhere to hide.

I’ve been cussing up a storm and regressing to the angsty girl that “no one gets.” Deep in perimenopause, I’m still a teenage misanthrope at the mall, scouring the crowd for shrewd eyes. I wanted to be seen. I still do. I wanted to force-feed people lightning so I could have a friend. I still do.

On the Winter Solstice, I attended a fairy dance in a dream. All eyes were shrewd eyes, overflowing with mischief and life. The tall, fair folk said I could be there because I had a drop of their blood, which I already knew, just as I knew the rules of their world.

I granted the Germanic Power Frau a favor without looking her in the eye. We nodded afterward, acknowledging the folk code. At the end of the dream, a group of small, queer men in blue told me “my kind” weren’t allowed in the bathroom. They issued me a stamp back to my own world.

I awoke in a state of full-body ambivalence, elated by mutual thriving, but crying to be back in the human realm. It had never felt so flat. Here in Babel, no one speaks the same language or agrees on the rules. Very few of us understand what it means to hold a world that cannot, by definition, be carried alone.

I have always struggled to be a person, and have never allowed myself to be seen. Publicly, I don’t pretend to be perfect, but I have developed a habit of presenting a relentlessly generous perspective, in writing and otherwise. To me, this feels like an offering, not a lie. Cultivated grace has value, but it’s not the whole story.

I am socially stunted from hiding my whole life. People close to me have been shocked by my wildly destructive choices. I’ve lied my way through double lives more than once. I'd start each morning with vodka, and drink all day because I wanted to die. No one even knew. Not my husband, not my mother. Maybe I took pride in that. Maybe I still do. I kept demons in the closet until they’d burst out every couple of years to expose the ruins of my life. I’ve cut myself, overdosed, wrecked cars and homes and lives.

I realize this is garden-variety flailing, but I wanted you to know. I am still reckless and awkward, and have trouble relating to people outside of teaching and practitioner roles. Before this year, most of my friends were dead or nature spirits because they are much easier to talk to (and to listen to). They “get it” and do not exhaust me.

My experimental openness still endangers me and burdens others. I walk the line between non-duality and death wish. Things can go badly without the checks and balances of kinship, culture, and common sense. I learn about boundaries by crossing them. I have repeatedly violated my own by tolerating trespass from others. I’ve transgressed against the people I love most and exiled myself from my own species. My heat-seeking curiosity for the unknown has grueling consequences, but every time I don’t die, the contours of human belonging widen. The silver lining is understanding for the exiled.

The procession of solstices shows me the story of my own alignment. I am not a fairy or a nature spirit or an ancestor. I’m a human being in the human world. Now I even have human friends (exactly what a real human would say)!

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a minor existential crisis in their company, a major meltdown with my husband, and an unprecedented catharsis with my mom. I have decided to be ugly around others, to let the village hold my body in its gnashing. I don’t want to protect demons anymore. They rely on us to hide them. They thrive in secrecy and isolation. Kinship naturally exorcizes. Decades of suffering have surfaced due to collective care.

As the sun illuminates this turbulent earth, who knows what may come to light. May your demons be exposed. I didn’t want anyone to see mine because they are big and scary and want to kill me. But it turns out human beings are more powerful. I would much rather die to the village than to the demons who are too weak to enter it.