We tiptoe through life carefully, afraid to scare off the butterflies on the flowers that we imagine as crocodiles. Because what if they suddenly turn into predators and snap! at us!
No, better to move quietly, taking turtle steps—better yet, snail steps. And better to carry our little house on our back too, because while we’re crawling around like turtles, who knows, the crocodiles might destroy our home…
Creep-creep, crawl-crawl, grunt-grunt…
And so, almost without noticing, we transform—from those born to fly into those who, afraid of the depth, only swim at the shore. It’s scary to swim out. There are crocodiles out there.
We only dare to glance sideways at the horizon line, where, under the Golden Gate, a lonely sail cuts the sunset into violet and crimson.
That sail, for some reason, isn’t afraid of the crocodiles.
But we—we are afraid for it.
And when we glance at where the blue sail melts into the clouds, it stings our eyes, and it seems like the clouds turn into crocodiles and devour the sail for dinner, like it’s some poor eggplant.
“Your head could have been here.”
Doubling over with the nausea caused by imagining all the possible fates of the sail inside a crocodile’s stomach, we retreat, snail-like, to lick the wounds inflicted by our suddenly rampaging imagination.
And we solemnly swear to ourselves:
“Never! Never again look at the horizon line!”
The crocodiles are always awake.
CHOMP!
It hurts, it hurts.
It even hurts to stop wanting to look where nature had just staged a magnificent battle with itself.
Because teeth—teeth are everywhere…
When, at what point in our childhood, did we suddenly believe that Love is a giant crocodile that swallows without even chewing?
Where, in which corner of our heart, does this painful pandemic of fear—of being unworthy—begin?
Fear of being unworthy… of Love.
Who planted in our souls the rotten seed of the paralyzing thought that someone, somewhere, could even possibly be unworthy of love?
Today, I watched a cloud—and right before my eyes, it morphed from a long-tailed mouse into a long snout, and then dissolved completely into the blue.
And it made me laugh—this realization of how desperately we run away from such simple, effortless happiness:
—to be loved—
inventing more and more reasons why it must be impossible.
I know a woman who never doubted that she was loved.
And she has never been unhappy in love.
Not because she is special.
But simply… because.
Every human being in this world is worthy of the most beautiful thing.
And the most beautiful thing of all—is Love.
The crocodile gave a sly grin, shed its cocoon, unfolded its wings, and fluttered away like a cabbage butterfly toward the horizon, where under the Golden Gate two wild sails met…