The muse appears at the point in my writing when I sense a subtle shift, a nudge to move over, and everything cracks open, the writing is freed, the lanuage is full, resources are plentiful, ideas pour forth, and to be frank, some of these ideas surprise me. It seems as thought the universe is my friend and is helping me write, its hand over mine.

She [my mother] said that if I listened to her, later I would know what she knew: where true words came from, always from up high, above everything else. And if I didn't listen to her, she said my ear would bend too easily to other people, all saying words that had no lasting meaning, because they came from the bottom of their hearts, where their own desires lived, a place where I could not belong.

how can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?

Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.

My mother said I was a clingy kid until I was about four. I also remember that from the age of eight she and I fought almost every day.

Yet part of me also thinks the whole idea makes perfect sense. The three of us, leaving our differences behind, stepping on the plane together, sitting side by side, lifting off, moving West to reach the East.

I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression.