The reason I never give up hope is because everything is so basically hopeless.

Every woman's path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is, sadly, true. An unhealthy mother's love is withering.

I'm all over the place, up and down, scattered, withdrawing, trying to find some elusive sense of serenity." The world can't give that serenity. The world can't give us peace. We can only find it in our hearts." I hate that." I know. But the good news is that by the same token, the world can't take it away.

Intelligence, goodness, humanity, excitement, serenity. Over time, these are the things that change the musculature of your face, as do laughter, and animation, and especially whatever peace you can broker with the person inside. It's furrow, pinch, and judgement that make us look older - our mothers were right. They said that if you made certain faces, they would stick, and they do. But our mothers forgot that faces of kindness and integrity stick as well.

Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?

Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe we're invited into a relationship with someone who hears us when we speak in silence.

If you don't die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness, which we all yearn for, or you can do the beauty of minutiae, the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean, and the crystal silence will uplift you like great gospel music, or Neil Young.