When the World Breaks You Open

Last week, I tripped while reading a piece of graffiti poetry on a side street:

“Even now, there’s barely any problems
bc I see no one but you, and
that’s mathematically my maximum
love, my grand amour.”

I was caught in the layers—
the faded spray paint,
the unexpected intimacy of someone’s public longing,
the way words can hold your attention just long enough
to make you forget the ground beneath you.

Then I fell.
Hard.

Snapped three fingers clean at the base of my right hand.
Not my writing hand—I’m a leftie.
But still, everything shifted.

I spend most days thinking about immersion—
how we design experiences that help people feel, remember, connect.

But this wasn’t curated.
It wasn’t safe.
It wasn’t gentle.

It was physical.
Disruptive.
Sharp.

And somehow, still—
it was a kind of connection.

Pain is immersive.
So is poetry.
So is the way the world interrupts you
right when you think you’re alone in it.

Whoever wrote that line—“my grand amour”—
probably didn’t expect it to be read mid-fall.
But that’s how immersion works.

Sometimes it invites you in.
Sometimes it breaks you open

.