Qigong at Lady Bird Lake, Seaholm Side
Bryce stood at the water’s edge, where the lake lapped quietly at the crumbled concrete bones of the Seaholm Intake. The morning light pressed gently on his skin—warm, but not demanding. He closed his eyes, spine straightening like a reed in slow wind.
“Inhale into the space between what was and what might be…”
His hands lifted with the breath, an arc through air so thick with pollen and memory it nearly spoke. Behind him, the hum of the city stirred—the MoPac train trundled in the distance, a low mechanical mantra echoing across time. His knees bent slightly. The Qigong form was called Cloud Hands—he liked that. The idea that anger could be held like vapor. That grief could drift.
The legal language had arrived like a thunderclap in a courthouse chamber. Dry. Precise. Meant to protect, but offering no warmth. The page had his name, his numbers, his lines drawn in procedural ink. He read it once, then folded it and placed it in the back pocket of his jeans like a pressed leaf. Something had ended, yes. But something else—a rhythm, a breath, a practice—had begun.
“Exhale into the soles of your feet, and root yourself deeper than the systems that have failed you…”
Shoal Creek wound behind the Intake, its path a low murmur of stone and runoff and secret resilience. Bryce had come here often during the quiet hours before court filings and difficult conversations. The Central Library stood a short walk upstream, its quiet walls holding him more than once when his own did not. He remembered reading about ecosystems regenerating from disturbance. Fire, flood, divorce—same idea.
“Turn your palms to the sky. Receive what is not yours to control. Let it pass through.”
His arms moved slowly, deliberately, as if he were pushing something heavy—but invisible—across the surface of the air. Anger flickered behind his ribs like a pilot light, never fully going out. But now, he could feel it with curiosity. Hold it without flinching.
Sometimes, he imagined the city itself was breathing with him. That Lady Bird Lake inhaled his regrets and exhaled a kind of soft forgiveness. That the train knew his name but didn’t need to say it. That the Intake’s broken windows were eyes blinking toward a future he hadn’t yet envisioned.
He finished the set with a bow—not to any deity, but to the part of himself that had kept showing up.
Bryce stayed still for a long moment after. Not needing resolution. Just rhythm. Just the way wind played with the edges of the page still folded in his back pocket.
“In the pause between gestures, find the shape of what you’re becoming.”
He opened his eyes. A bird—not quite a hawk, not quite a dream—glided low across the lake.
Tomorrow, there would be more paperwork. More questions. Maybe even court. But today, there was breath. There was water. There was movement.
And that was enough.