My mother imparted her daily truths so she could help my older brothers and me rise above our circumstances. We lived in San Francisco's Chinatown. Like most of the other Chinese children who played in the back alleys of restaurants and curio shops, I didn't think we were poor. My bowl was always full, three five-course meals every day, beginning with a soup full of mysterious things I didn't want to know the names of.

I'd like to be more forgiving. There are times when I've had a hard time forgiving people who have betrayed me.

I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.

I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them.

We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.

I learned to make things not matter, to put a seal on my hopes and place them on a high shelf, out of reach. And by telling myself that there was nothing inside those hopes anyway, I avoided the wounds of deep disappointment. The pain was no worse than the quick sting of a booster shot. And yet thinking about this makes me ache again. How is it that as a child I knew I should have been loved more? Is everyone born with a bottomless emotional resevoir?

The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye.