Gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity.

Being enough was going to have to be an inside job.

Sometimes Heaven is just a new pair of glasses.

Write regularly, whether you feel like writing or not, and whether you think what you're writing is any good or not.

I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is.

My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between words; about the margins, where so many juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a library, you could find miracles and truth and you might find something that would make you laugh so hard that you get shushed, in the friendliest way.

For too long, and despite what people told me, I had fallen for what the culture said about beauty, youth, features, heights, weights, hair textures, upper arms.