When my daughter looks at me, she sees a small old lady. That is because she sees only with her outside eyes. She has no chuming, no inside knowing of things. If she had chuming she would see a tiger lady. And she would have careful fear.

Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?

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

My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finish a book and want to immediately find another by the same author and no other, that author is elevated to my favorite.

I let one thing result from another. Of course, all of it could have been just loosely connected coincidences. And whether that's true or not, I know the intention was there. Becasue when I want something to happen-or not happen- I begin to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.

I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.

But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei