How right that the body changed over time, becoming a gallery of scars, a canvas of experience, a testament to life and one's capacity to endure it.

I think we're starved for a life of the senses. We're in the garage, we're in the car, we drive to work, we're in a windowless cubicle that's gray and beige. In a way, it's funny that we consider ourselves an advanced culture, because people who live in so-called primitive environments still enjoy the richness of the smells, colors, and sounds of our world. We all crave that.

This was the life I was going to be living, everybody separated from everybody else, hanging on for a moment only to be washed away.

The sound of her laughter was sticky as sap, the smell of night-blooming jasmine soft as a milk bath.

Aquamarines grew with emeralds, Claire told me. But emeralds were fragile and always broke into smaller pieces, while aquamarines were stronger, grew in huge crystals without any trouble, so they weren't worth as much. It was the emerald that didn't break that was the really valuable thing.

Take my advice. Stay away from all broken people.

Don't hoard the past. Don't cherish anything. Burn it. The artist is the phoenix who burns to emerge.