不必用一個樣子，過完一生
常說人生如戲，你覺得此刻正在演的，是一個怎樣設定的自己呢？
香楊梅是長在北方濵地的小灌木，枝葉上佈滿樹脂腺，搝一下香氣就出來。它本身是雌雄異株的植物，但植物學上形容它時要用一個折衷的名詞：亞雌雄異株。同一片族群裡會出現雌雄同株的個體，甚至雙性的花。而同一棵樹，今年開雄花，明年可以改開雌花。性別在它身上不是出生時定下來的一件事，是每一年重新表達一次。
我們對自己好像沒有這樣寬鬆。給自己定了一個角色，就當不能再改。變了，就等於從前那個是假的。
香楊梅的香氣也不只一種。先是甜甜的草本，帶一點冰涼；往下走，有黑胡椒般的辛香和樹脂的蠟質感；尾巴微微苦綠，像草藥。一支油從頭到尾換了幾次面孔，沒有哪一段不是它的一部分，每一面都是。
改變不是背叛。今年的你和去年的你不一樣，不代表其中一個是假的，只是那一年的條件不同，於是活成那一年該有的樣子。
不必用一個樣子，過完一生。
以香為語，安在當下。
𝘽𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩.
You are not typecast for life.
They say life is a stage. What sort of character do you think you are playing just now?
Sweet gale is a small shrub of the northern wetlands. Its twigs and leaves are studded with resin glands; crush one between your fingers and the scent is there at once. It is a dioecious plant, one bush bearing one sex, except that botanists have had to reach for a hedged word to describe it: subdioecious. Within a single stand you will find bushes carrying both sexes, and even flowers that carry both. And a shrub bearing male catkins one year may bear female ones the next. Its sex was never settled at the beginning. It is expressed again, each year.
We are not nearly so generous with ourselves. We settle on a part early, and then treat the casting as final. To change, we feel, would expose the earlier version as a fraud.
The oil is not one thing either. Sweet herbs first, with a cool edge to them; then a peppery warmth and something waxy and resinous underneath; a faintly bitter green at the close, almost medicinal. It changes face several times over, and not one of those faces is less itself than the others. All of them are.
Change is not betrayal. The you of this year and the you of last year need not agree. The conditions differed, and you lived accordingly.
You are not typecast for life.
Grounded in the present, spoken through scent.
𝘽𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩.