No matter where you are, you're always a bit on your own, always an outsider.

In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions much of one's life history is etched in the senses.

At that moment I had a thrilling sharp intuition. I knew it as if I held it in my hands: In the gloom of death that surrounded the two of us, we were just at the point of approaching and negotiating a gentle curve. If we bypassed it, we would split off into different directions. In that case, we would forever remain just friends.

Everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.

The ritual of our daily lives permeate our very bodies.

I should have told her at the time. I could have taken a deep breath, looked away, and forced myself to say it.

Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we've ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves.