Summer nearly does me in every year. It's too hot and the light is unforgiving and the days go on way too long.

Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace on its feet. quoting her pastor in Salon, April 25, 2003

And you try to quiet your mind so you can hear.

Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.

only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.

Most marriages are a mess, and the children get caught between two bitter, antagonistic parents. My parents stayed married for 27 unhappy years, till their kids were grown, and this was a catastrophe for us.

I suspect that he was a child who thought differently than his peers, who may have had serious conversations with grown-ups, who as a young person, like me, accepted being alone quite a lot. I think that this sort of person often becomes either a writer or a career criminal.