The self.

Maybe the self extends past the thin envelope of skin. Maybe it includes the man-made box the body inhabits: the shelf of carefully arranged stones-of-travel, the photos and cut flowers, the wall paint that matches the sky.

Maybe, like magnetism, the self extends out into the yard, to wander among the ferns and grass and the flowering plants passed along by neighbors as slips in Dixie cups of damp earth.

Maybe it includes the street, and the fixed constellation of houses that anchor a particular landscape, the confluence of latitude and longitude above which is pinned a sky where the predictable moon waxes and wanes.

Maybe the self is a filter of chosen beliefs that provides an explanation of how this enterprise called life works; there must be some rules.

Without that framework of rules and assumptions the self would dissolve like sugar in water.

Maybe the self embraces time: the what-was of yesterday, the what-is of today, while leaning, always leaning toward the what-will-be of a tomorrow.

Maybe it includes the what-is-not and what-may-never-be of hopes and dreams.

Maybe the self, mirrored back in the admiration or disapproval of others, is more aware of its own reflection than it is of any intrinsic sense in its own worth.

Maybe that is why self is a volatile stock, spiking high and crashing low.

Maybe self is as ephemeral as thought and as solid as a well-worn pair of shoes.

Maybe self is exhaled, along with our last breath, leaving only a shimmering reflection in the memory of others.

And maybe when we release that self we see, for the first time, what-is, unfiltered.