I’ve known about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave for years, but for some reason, I only sat down to read it in full today. Isn’t that how life works? The teacher shows up when the student is ready—even if the teacher is a 2,400-year-old philosopher and the “classroom” is my own living room.

To draw or sculpt, one must first see the form before it exists. That takes precision and courage. Michelangelo is claimed to have said he did not carve stone, but instead, released the figure wanting to be free from the stone.  And in a sense, that is what I have been doing with my own life these past months: releasing myself from the hardened calcified remains of who I once was. And boy was it heavy.