It's been some time since I've received a letter to pass on. This one's been percolating for a while, so there may be more, but I wanted to pass this one on, it's been sitting on my desk for some time.
Mom,
Before I was born, I fell. Through the bright, self-lit limbs of monstrous tall trees, I fell with the sound of the wind in my ears: WHOOSH. That sound and the exquisite, luminous white of leafless trees, and only darkness and silence otherwise. I stared straight down, because I couldn't focus on any single branch, instead they tore my view with jagged white like lightning, one after one, whoosh whoosh whoosh. They were all molten platinum veins glowing in the darkness, the limbs, and they were many and the same.
I had no body then, but I felt that giddy rush, like when I give up trying and just let myself fall, into space or into fear. It was the kind of feeling I would say I feel in my stomach now, but then too, without a stomach, there was the same fear and wild joy. The branches hit me, whatever me it was that was before I was born, and it hurt. But I couldn't stop. For hours I flew down and down, faster and faster, until the white limbs blended together into one molten river of light pouring all around me.
And then it was over. I only remember seeing the river fly away and disappear, and the darkness rising up to meet me.
Whenever we put up the ropey strands of luminary ivy at the first of the year I see that brilliant light reflected as streaks in snow and I feel the giddiness and the pain. I long for it.