Turn 161 of 228

Share your own dream and encourage them to follow their own

Lena lowers herself to the concrete. The twelve-foot body folding down, the belly spreading across the floor, the yellow nails resting on the cold surface. The triplets are around her — June has stopped jogging, Iris has set down the pen, Mae has stopped reaching for the empty container. The warehouse is quiet. Marcus's keyboard has gone silent. Carl's fridge hums in the background. The three small faces look up at Lena, and Lena looks back at them from the height of a body that fills a room.

"You want to know what I wanted?" Lena says.

"When I was little — not much older than you are now, in years, not in — not in the way you are — I wanted to be invisible. I wanted to be small. I wanted to take up no space and make no sound and have no body that anyone could look at and judge. I wanted to disappear into my own skin and never come out."

June frowns. The frown of someone who cannot conceive of wanting less space. Iris writes something in the notebook. Mae's hands close into fists.

"And then I grew up," Lena says. "And I was still invisible. And I was still small — not small like you, small like I was pretending. Small like I was making myself fit into desks and chairs and clothes and rooms and conversations that weren't built for me. And I hated it. I hated every minute of it. And one night I stood in a bathroom and I said I just wish I could feel comfortable in my body for once."

The warehouse is still. The triplets are still. The hum is low and warm.

"And the wish came true," Lena says. "But not the way I expected. I didn't get small and invisible and comfortable that way. I got big. I got bigger than every desk and every chair and every room and every door. I got so big I can't fit in a car or a bus or a building with normal ceilings. I got so big I have to live in a warehouse. And I stopped showering and stopped wearing clothes and stopped pretending I was anything other than what I am. And for the first time in my life, I am comfortable."

She looks at June. The explorer. The one who drops from eight feet and jogs in place because stillness is a cage.

"June," Lena says. "You want to see everything. Every wall, every street, every city, every horizon. I spent twenty-four years trying not to be seen. You are six months old and you want to see the whole world. That is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. Don't ever let anyone tell you to slow down. Don't ever let anyone tell you the wall is too high or the street is too long or the world is too big. The world is never too big. The world is exactly the size it needs to be for someone who wants all of it."

June grins. The two bottom teeth. The runner's stance. She takes off across the bay — a full sprint, the bare feet slapping concrete, the yellow nails clicking — and reaches the far wall in four seconds and turns and sprints back.

"I'm going to see everything," June says. "Everything everything everything."

Lena turns to Iris. The scientist. The one who watches and writes and corrects clinical technique at six months.

"Iris," Lena says. "You want to understand why things are the way they are. You want to study the world the way Billy Jo studies us. I spent twenty-four years not understanding why I hated my own body. I still don't fully understand it. But you — you already write down what you see and you already think about why people do what they do. You are going to find answers that nobody else can find because nobody else watches the way you watch. Don't ever let anyone tell you that watching isn't doing. Watching is the most important thing a person can do. Watching is how the world becomes known."

Iris nods. The notebook opens. She writes *WATCHING IS DOING. MAMA SAID.* She closes the notebook and holds it against her chest. The face is calm. The eyes are steady.

Then Mae. The one who wants more. The one who is already more. Lena looks at the round belly, the open hands, the forty-six pounds of pure appetite.

"Mae," Lena says. "You want to be the biggest. You want to be bigger than everybody. You want to be bigger than me."

Mae nods. The fists tight.

"I spent twenty-four years trying to be smaller," Lena says. "And then I got bigger and I found out that big is where the comfort lives. Big is where the hum lives. Big is where you stop pretending. You already know that. You've known it since you were born. You screamed for more on your first day and you haven't stopped screaming. Don't ever let anyone tell you that wanting more is wrong. Wanting more is how everything grows. Wanting more is how I got here. Wanting more is how you got here."

Mae stands. The three-foot-nine body, the round belly, the open hands. She walks to Lena — not running, not climbing, walking with the deliberate heaviness of someone who knows exactly where she's going — and presses her body against Lena's belly. The warm, unwashed, stretch-marked belly. The surface Mae has slept on since birth. She presses her face into it.

"More," Mae says. Into the belly. Into the warmth.

The hum holds them. Three heartbeats. Three dreams. Three people becoming. The warehouse is quiet and the warehouse is full and the body is comfortable and the body is more.