May I be sealed

I shut the windows to leave the sounds and the smells.

I close the heavy curtains to hide from the heat.

I drink a green smoothie out of self-grown beetroot and lettuce.

I moisture my body in GMO-free, pesticide-free, plastic-free, fair-trade coconut oil.

I moisture my throat with spring water bottled at full moon.

I maintain a sense of control over my body and my health.

I am pure.

Yet, I am not an atomized and isolated individual. I can’t seal myself from the world. Microplastics run through my blood. Exhaust gases stream into my lungs. Pesticides remain on my self-grown beetroot, blown to my food forest from the fields nearby.

They become me.

I am interdependent with the complex ecologies in which I am implicated and through which I am formed. It is impossible to distinguish between me, the experiencing subject, and some imagined separate object that affects me.

I can’t be sealed.

What does it mean - instead of trying to be sealed - to survive and to thrive in toxicity in broken ecosystems and degraded landscapes?