I saw what I had been fighting for: It was for me, a scared child, who had run away a long time ago to what I had imagined was a safer place. And hiding in this place, behind my invisible barriers, I knew what lay on the other side: Her side attacks. Her secret weapons. Her uncanny ability to find my weakest spots. But in the brief instant that I had peered over the barriers I could finally see what was finally there: an old woman, a wok for her armor, a knitting needle for her sword, getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in.

But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning. And I remember everything that happened that day becasue it has happened many times in my life. The same innocence, trust, and restlessness; the wonder, fear, and lonliness. How I lost myself. I remember all these things. And tonight, on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, I also remember what I asked the Moon Lady so long ago. I wished to be found.

I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child.

In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.

My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.

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

And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.