Hurricane season brings a humbling reminder that, despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.

For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.

A life like an intricately woven basket, frayed, worn, broken, unraveled, reworked, reknit from many of its original pieces... Life can survive in the constant shadow of illness, and even rise to moments of rampant joy, but the shadow remains, and one has to make space for it.

Love, like truth, is the unassailable defense.

Violets smell like burnt sugar cubes that have been dipped in lemon and velvet.

habit, a particularly insidious thug who chokes passion and smothers love. Habit puts us on autopilot.

Words are such small things, like confetti in the brain, and yet they are color and clarify everything, they can stain the mind or warp the feelings.