Dear Ezra: A Mirror for Becoming

Dear Ezra,

I know we’ve never met…

And yet my hungry mind keeps feeding me

slow-burning images of you in your kitchen:

rolled-up sleeves, the air dense with command,

your hands moving with the precision of a virtuoso—

layering flavours like chords:

the sharp salt of anchovy,

the lingering heat of harissa,

a high note of preserved lemon.

Each motion—tasting, pausing, stirring—

repeated like a sacred phrase,

until your lips recall the taste

in tune with what your hands already knew.

But as my mind opens wider, the details blur—

half-swallowed by ravenous steam

and lulled by crackling fire,

I hear the whispers of your ancestors—

their ancient recipes born

in temple kitchens and sun-drenched markets,

where fruit burst open, and spices clung to the air like memory.

And something in that mingling—

of wisdom, quiet longing, and the promise of sustenance—

folds me slowly

into the dance of emulsified desire.

In its swirl,

I—a woman at the edge of the beginning—

reach for the fruit of knowing.

Tempted by the sweetness of the forbidden,

I crave more for the truth ripening within:

truth that decides the right time for all things—

to sow,

to wait,

to yield,

to share,

to cry,

to love,

to live—

and to return to earth.

A yearning to taste what’s true in every flavour—

the darkest fruit and the golden grain—

and to let it nourish what is still becoming.

There, in the drift between fire and memory,

I am back in your spell—

witnessing quiet devotion in the way you handle the earth’s raw gifts—

as if the ripeness of the fig,

the sweetness of roasted garlic,

and the delicate fragrance of saffron

must be revered—before they offer their essence fully

in return.

And when at last you plate

the result of your creation before me—

each scent,

each texture,

each note coaxed into being—

a quiet summons within me:

To give thanks for the hands that passed me bread

when all life offered was a salted crust,

and for the fleeting sweetness of festive tables,

the warmth of belonging,

the joy of discovery with friends, family,

and kind strangers across the years.

But gratitude soon gives way to reckoning:

all the years of meager existence

when I fed my soul on crumbs of approval,

trading ambition for complacency,

and love for comfort.

So, what is it that I truly hunger for?

And will I finally dare

to claim my place at the feast of life—

To ask for what fulfills,

to season my days with risk and honest longing,

to stop chewing on my stale fears

and indulging in the leftovers of other people’s dreams?

My gaze lingers a little longer

as I watch the travellers and locals

slip in for a quick bite—only to leave

with their palates magically awakened

by the alchemy of flavours—you patiently labour to life.

And I rejoice for the nourished.

I know we’ve never met…

And yet your voice lingers in me

like a sacred refrain that etched itself into the spirals of my DNA—

resonating with everything I once silenced in myself—

my longing to feel deeply, to choose freely, to create with devotion.

I only heard you once—

a brief phone call to connect or to part—

it matters little, for it felt so familiar—

as though you had always spoken to me, through me,

from somewhere deeper than memory,

beyond time and space.

As if some part of me had always been waiting to remember you—

not just a man on the other end of the line,

but a melody returning to its source,

filling my whole body with the harmony of rekindled inner knowing.

I guess in that moment I was finally ready to recognize it—

this life-affirming tune—

after years of fading beneath the noise of the everyday

and everything I thought I should be:

all the striving, the shapeshifting,

the stepping on my own throat

just to reach the unattainable notes

in the chorus of inherited voices

that have blasted in my ears since childhood

and still echo to this day.

And all the while, I hear your steady chords—

not loud, not pleading—softly asking:

Will you play your song?

—My song? You mean ‘the song’ I wasn’t meant to die with still inside me?

But there’s no reply.

Only your guitar resting against your knee,

like an old companion,

and your poised face in the firelight—

singing through stillness, louder than lips ever could.

You don’t rush.

You don’t pose.

You simply play.

And something stirs in that stillness,

as I find myself reaching for a poem I once wrote—

too vast for my younger self to carry—

it waited, until now, to return with meaning:

Dreams give us wings, but heights obey

The soul—aligned, the hands that train.

Unless you cast off shame and doubt,

The path stays steep — no clear route.

Time after time, those stones must fall

From your own heart—each bitter wall—

Until, at last, you come to find

A deeper rhythm your soul designed.

And God will grant the gift you seek—

The mastery to touch your peak.

Not for applause or fleeting fame,

But for the peace that has no name.

And though the laurel crowns your brow,

Immortal praise can’t sway you now.

For once you’ve brushed eternal flame,

Earth’s path becomes your steadfast claim!

These words—pure, uninvited, whole—

came to me like a visitation—twenty-one summers ago—

in a voice I barely understood but longed to honour.

I believed I could rise—

that through art I might transcend the mundane,

and serve something greater—

unaware that greatness

could be as quiet as faith held in uncertainty,

as steady as devotion to what’s most real,

and as brave as truth spoken into the heart of the deceived.

But riddled with commitment and compromise,

perfectionism and pride, I buried this calling

beneath the obligations and ideals I mistook for my soul’s purpose:

pouring myself into raising a family,

supporting someone else’s vision,

shrinking so others could expand—

quietly abandoning the path before I’d even let my feet touch the ground.

Telling myself I wasn’t ready,

that my goals were secondary,

that I needed to become more perfect,

and get better at walking on eggshells—

shielding myself from the rawness of life,

numbing the ache of not being enough,

and hoping for the day I’d finally be allowed

to show up and face the world—as myself.

And there I was—at forty-seven—

still chasing the shadow of who I was meant to be,

burrowed beneath the life I’d built,

unmoved by wonder,

full of regrets and doubts that had matured into shadows harder to shake—

the fear of becoming invisible,

of a body in slow disarray,

of no longer being desired,

of running out of time—never truly living.

God, how exhausting—

replaying these tormenting leitmotifs,

performing to someone else’s music,

when all I longed for was to compose my own.

Until your voice, Ezra—

gentle but unwavering, like the pulse of life—
awakens mine—the younger self I’d left behind—

close as breath, steady as prayer—

her unspoken words lean into your ever-returning refrain—

in answer to my longing:

To reclaim what I once silenced.

To sing—at last—

not for applause,

but because my heart can beat no longer in dissonance with its own truth.

Because the note I carry—like yours, like each of ours—

is too vital to remain unsung.

I must sing—

because my song, ringing through calm and storm,

is how I know I’m alive.

And I bow to the soloists who dared.

I know we’ve never met…

You said, “it may be futile”—

that you’d learned “not to fall into certain traps”—

“perhaps” you added, “sorry”—“it’s for the best.”

Then slipped back into your life,

leaving behind an abbreviated kiss — “X”.

But to a soul adrift,

those specks of ambiguity shimmered

like a constellation

in an infinite universe of maybe.

And so, instead of returning to my own life,

like Clotho, I began spinning illusion

into a wild tapestry of another fated love: yet again

mistaking flickers for flame,

draping silk on silhouettes,

rehearsing duets alone.

As time moved forward,

the mirage—indifferent to my intricately laced fantasies—vanished.

And though a wisp of resentment remained,

I refused to knot it into the usual weave

of heathered rejection, doubt, and grief.

Instead—in stretching to grasp for

the absent you,

I suddenly snapped inward—

to the depth of me

I hadn’t touched in years.

A place where self isn’t thought, but breath—

the kind we greet life with at birth:

a full-bodied cry, lungs flared with faith,

declaring:

I am here. I am whole. Ready for the vastness of life.

This breath—once my truth—

forgotten amidst life’s shaping and breaking—

returns now as a gasp of recognition,

a remembering of the self I had almost abandoned—

like amber, glowing softly

in the hollows of my soul—

where I’ll forever exist—

rooted in quiet knowing,

beneath the ache for approval to feel real,

creating in soulful response to life,

whole—even through my wounds,

with love—my true essence, not a pursuit,

trusting the rhythm of divine unfolding,

where ashes are beginnings, too.

And as I stand before this letter—empty,

nothing left to withhold—

I catch myself humming

in the hush of the summer breeze,

rustling the leaves of our unfinished sonata.

No, it wasn’t the promise of love that moved me—

but the space you kept that let me choose myself,

your voice, a knowing of life’s thousand joys and sorrows—

your craft—a call to bring my own hands back to work:

to this page,

to my song,

to the recipe for a life I hadn’t yet dared try—

and the mirror you unknowingly held to my soul—

where I saw not a woman undone,

but one in the embrace of her becoming.

I know we’ve never met…

But I’ll always remember you—

every time I pause to let life in fully—

with a long, yielding “Mmmm…”

Ezra, the one who helped me remember.

With thanks,

Nearly. Loved.

-Natalie Swan

Natalie Swan is a bilingual writer whose letter “Dear Ezra: A Mirror for Becoming” marks her debut into literary writing and the cornerstone of her first collection, a work-in-progress gathering women’s stories shaped by their transformations in midlife.