Who you are isn't tied solely to what you say, even though it may feel that way to you now.

Which is crueler, an old man's lost memories of a life lived, or a young man's lost memories of the life he meant to live?

We ogle plants and animals up close on television, the Internet and in the movies. We may not worship the animals we see, but we still regard them as necessary physical and spiritual companions. Technological nature can't completely satisfy that yearning.

The more we exile ourselves from nature, the more we crave its miracle waters.

Much of life becomes background, but it is the province of art to throw buckets of light into the shadows and make life new again.

When you consider something like death, after which (there being no news flash to the contrary) we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably doesn't matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, enjoy a nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly.

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.