Mutation

This poem explores the difference between change and integration.

Some transformations happen suddenly. A realization, experience, or internal shift can alter something so fundamentally that returning to who we were before is no longer possible.

But recognizing that change does not mean we immediately know how to live from it.

Integration is the slower process of discovering what the transformation asks of us and allowing our lives to reorganize around what has become true.

This poem came from recognizing that transformation does not always happen gradually.

Sometimes something changes in an instant. A realization arrives, an experience alters us, or something internal shifts in a way that cannot simply be undone. There may be a clear before and after, even when we don't yet understand what the difference means.

I think I used to expect that once something changed, I should immediately know what to do with it.

But mutation and integration operate on very different timelines.

The line that feels most important to me is:

“The next step is to be still”

There can be an impulse after profound change to immediately act, define, or reorganize. But sometimes the most appropriate response is observation: allowing the new reality to reveal its implications before deciding what should come next.

The phrase “new mechanics” is important to me for a similar reason. Once something fundamental changes, the old ways of navigating life may no longer function in quite the same way. Integration becomes the process of learning how this new version of ourselves actually moves.

That takes experimentation.

It takes adjustment.

And, perhaps most importantly, it takes time.

The mutation may happen in an instant.

Learning to live beyond it takes time.