你的防備，也是最甜的地方
印尼話把陰香叫作 kayu manis，意思是甜的木。但真正甜的不是木，是皮。這株植物的甜不在花，也不在果，而是在那層用來抵擋外界的樹皮。
樹皮本來不是為了好吃而長的。它的職責是防守：擋蟲、擋菌、擋曬、擋住水份跑掉。它是這棵樹最外面、最先碰到世界的那一層。這層防護長出來的氣味，沒有苦澀，也不帶刺，反而成為了人類喜愛的甜。
陰香的氣味比一般的錫蘭肉桂更暖、更厚實，尾段帶著一點曬過的乾草氣息。那股甜是貼身的，聞著會讓人不自覺地把肩膀放下來。很難想像這樣的暖，來自一層本來用來擋東西的皮。
我們常常把自己最外面那一層變得無比堅硬，甚至有點尖銳，來保護自己。但陰香那層皮一樣在擋蟲、擋菌、擋曬，卻擋得甜。
防守和溫柔，原來可以是同一層。
你那份小心，不用拆掉。它一直是你最暖的那一層。
以香為語，安在當下。
Your guard is the sweetest thing about you.
In Indonesian, cinnamon is called kayu manis — sweet wood. But what is sweet is not the wood; it is the bark. The sweetness of this tree is not in its flower or its fruit, but in the layer it uses to hold the outside world off.
Bark was never grown to be eaten. Its work is defence: against insects, against fungus, against the sun, against losing its water. It is the outermost layer of the tree, the first thing to meet the world. And the scent that comes out of that defence has no bitterness to it, and nothing sharp. It turned out to be the sweetness people love.
Indonesian cinnamon is warmer and more solid than the Ceylon kind, with something of sun-dried hay at the close. The sweetness sits close to the skin; smelling it, you let your shoulders down without meaning to. It is hard to credit that a warmth like this comes from a layer whose job was to keep things out.
We tend to make our own outermost layer very hard, even a little sharp, in order to protect ourselves. But that bark is still holding off the insects, the fungus, the sun — and it holds them off sweetly.
Defence and tenderness, it turns out, can be the same layer.
That carefulness of yours does not need taking apart. It has always been the warmest thing about you.
𝘽𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩.