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We were introduced to ourselves as
numbers on the playground.
Mine was always near the end,
X, Y, Z. Doesn’t matter if your friends
are in the ABCs. Then,
standardized testing.
Social Security number. Driver’s license.
License plate. Insurance ID.
We were introduced to ourselves as
who had what, whose parents
bought them video games, who has seen
the latest movies. I was still always last.
My Friday nights were spent reading
or talking to a friend—
at the birth of instant messaging.
We were introduced to ourselves as
avatars, profile pictures, emojis.
The future started running faster—
and faster— zeroes and ones,
backslashes and brackets. I built my first
website at age 12, a fan site for horses.
Finally, a smartphone in college.
Facebook arrived at our fingertips.
I was chatting online with my friends
and my secret soul lovers late at night,
downloading music on Limewire
and trying not to crash my mom’s computer
with a virus.
We were introduced to ourselves as
technology rose like a wave
crashing on digital doors everywhere.
Now, we Zoom around the world
with each other on mute. We connect
with any other light point anywhere
in the world—
We introduce ourselves as
stewards of this plane,
breathing rhythms becoming
the bridge between ecosystems
and insanity. I’m practicing
seeing the world
through the plant’s eyes—
bubble of oxygen uniting all of us.
The water cycle. The soil. The delicate
balance of wolves to deer.
Mother trees. Pollinators.
We were introduced to ourselves as
polluters, our takeout dinner
container and plastic bags escaped
to the ocean. We began to understand
we, too, are the whales
and the fish and the turtles,
and they are dying,
suffocating on garbage.
We were introduced to ourselves as
part of a global dying—
a clear cutting and monocropping
nightmare state. A rapid decline
in living creatures.
And still, we introduce ourselves as
front yard growers, urban
strategists, bold artists, solarpunk futurists,
everyday geniuses— glowing
with passion and urgency, breaking through
the rain again and again, the sun
getting hotter and hotter, and all of us
gifted under it with a role to play, cheer
of possibility in our throats.
Nancy Woo
Nancy Lynée Woo is a poet, eco-organizer, and imagination enthusiast who harbors a wild love for the natural world. Nancy has received fellowships from California Creative Corps, Artists at Work, PEN America, Arts Council for Long Beach, and others. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University and is the author of I’d Rather Be Lightning (Gasher, 2023).