Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear in our lives.

I really came to literature through poetry.

"The Dream of a Common Language" by Adrienne Rich. I carried it the entire hike. On my first night, when I felt like I was in too deep, I read the first poem out loud to myself over and over.

That's how we find our way outward and onward. By holding onto beauty hardest. By cradling it like the cure that it is. By making it realer than anything ever was. The rest is just monsters and ghosts.

But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.

I set my toothbrush down, then leaned into the mirror and stared into my own eyes. I could feel myself disintegrating inside myself like a past-bloom flower in the wind. Every time I moved a muscle, another petal of me blew away. Please, I thought. Please.

It's a long life, sweetheart, and time heals all wounds.