risk your skin, she said

 

 

Or the story of Marsyas the musician who was half man and half beast and who could play as sweetly as any god on his flute and did so until Apollo the sun god himself heard rumours about how good the earthly musician was, came shooting down straight as a ray of light to earth, challenged him to a contest, won the contest and had the musician skinned alive as his prize.

Which isn't necessarily the injustice that it sounds, my mother said.  Cause imagine, the skin of marsyas slipped off as easily as a tomato's will in warm water to allow the red raw sweetness out of the fruit below.  And the sight of such release moved everyone who saw it to a strength of feeling more than any music anywhere played by any musician or god.

So always risk your skin, she said, and never fear losing it, cause it always does some good one way or another when the powers that be deign to take it off us.

page 250, How To Be Both by Ali Smith