Hi Anastasia, my name is Terra. This might be a strange email, but sometimes those are the most fun ones to receive.

We met almost exactly three years ago on the Bay Area Bart transit system, I was commuting to Berkeley where I lived at the time. A few weeks prior to our meeting, I had found the fortitude to break free from a three year long abusive relationship, and was all alone, moving through my day to day in what felt like an ear buzzing mind melting brain burning headspace... I had been sitting on the bart and felt the need to move trains, rolled my blue bike with me into a new car, and had just sat down. You Saw me, capital S saw me, approached me and told me a bit about how you take photos and would love to photograph me sometime. You gave me your phone number on the back of one of your photosized business cards- the one of the woman's beautiful back and flowing skirt, and we went separate ways. I was too scared at the time to follow up on your offer- it would take much more time before i was able heal and learn to trust again.

The reason I feel compelled to write to you is that I want to thank you- I still have that card with the photo of the beautiful woman on it. It led me to your website where i was able to come back to from time to time, to learn from and find peace and comfort and inspiration and strength and courage in the words you have written there. Like looking into a window to another world, and not stopping till i found my way there. The way you looked at me on the bart that day felt like an electrical shock, like some sort of surge of energetic fire coursed through my body, and in that moment I could remember what it felt like to be seen and to feel my vital aliveness. To have felt so dark and gone and beyond repair, and yet to be seen for a certain kind of beauty, despite of, or maybe because of, that darkness, has been significant in the process of coming back to me and letting this inner light grow.

Thank you for all that you do

In love and gratitude,
Terra

***

leading up to this, i tried to practice being naked

examining what it felt like to be in only my own skin

trying to see in it the strength and beauty i know i am now

but finding it hard to reconcile who i am now with where i've been

i had almost convinced myself that i had no right to be up here

but ultimately decided to own it and showed up because

by healing my sexuality, i heal a collective sexuality

and by restoring my womanhood, i add to a greater womanhood

"rape takes at least a year to process, but is can take a lifetime" Anastasia muses

my mind does quiet mental math

i wonder how an abusive relationship can bend time to make three years feel like three hundred

then realize that those three years were really a microcosm of the sixteen before it

"you can love your bulimia" She says fiercely

i ponder my body's complex biofeedback systems

its inherent compassion for me and

the things it does to preserve my sense of self

i feel Anastasia's words splash over me

they soak into my soul

seeking truths, we exchange back and forth

exploring intimate worlds of traumas

hours slip by and squares of sunshine drip across the floor

i had wanted to feel more confident and playful

but instead i felt a sense of severity

a sort of reverence reserved for sacred space