Years ago I wrote here about a wolf, then a turtle, then a crow — symbols that arrived on their own, each one naming a season of my life. This time I didn't wait for a symbol to find me. I made one.
It is a crest: a circle of old stone and bronze, set into a wall the ivy has already claimed. At its centre, a Gothic window. Above the window, a small crown. Around them, laurel and rope. And on the banner beneath, three words in Latin and a date: VOLENTI VIA EST — EST. 2015.
For the willing, there is a way.
I chose the ivy first. Ivy is not a noble plant. Nobody gives it the good soil or the centre of the garden. It starts where things are broken — a crack in the mortar, a gap between stones — and it grows anyway. Slowly, relentlessly, without asking permission. Give it a decade and it holds the wall up as much as the wall holds it. Everything I have that matters grew this way. Not granted. Grown.
Then the window (of opportunity). Notice it is a window, not a door. A door is opened for you, by someone on the other side who has decided you may enter. Few doors were ever opened for me, and I stopped waiting beside them a long time ago. But windows — narrow, ornate, easy to walk past if you aren't looking — those exist everywhere, for anyone patient enough to watch and decisive enough to climb through when the light changes. Every turning point I'm grateful for, I reached that way.
The crown is small, and it sits above the window, not above a throne. It rules nothing. It marks the only sovereignty I ever wanted: that no one else — no institution, no gatekeeper, no collapsing economy — gets to decide my ceiling.
And the date. 2015 was the year I gave the old life away — literally gave it, in boxes and bags — and crossed into a new one carrying what remained. Whatever I am now was founded that year, the way a city is founded: deliberately, on hard ground, by someone who decided to stay.
My favourite part of the crest is what surrounds it. The wall it hangs on is covered in living ivy, still growing. The symbol and the world it describes are made of the same material. One day the leaves will reach the laurel, then the crown, perhaps the motto itself. That's fine. By then the words will have done their work.
Volenti via est. For the willing, there is a way. There always was.
