Each day has a color, a smell.

Girls have to be toughened so they can survive a world that presses harder on women.

Words are tricky. Sometimes you need them to bring out the hurt festering inside. If you don't, it turns gangrenous and kills you. . . . But sometimes words can break a feeling into pieces.

...this time I didn't launch into my usual tirade. Was it a memory of Krishna, the cool silence with which he countered disagreement, that stopped me? I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy.

Tomorrow is another day. I've got plenty of things to worry about right now.

Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck.

There was an unexpected freedom in finding out that one wasn't as important as one had always assumed!