Very often history is a means of denying the past.

Only the impossible is worth the effort.

Breathe in, breath out. Oxygen is carcinogenic and likely puts a limit on our life span. It would be unwise though, to try to extend life by not breathing at all. Which of us doesn't do it? Either we loll in anaerobic stupor, too afraid to fill our lungs with risky beauty, or we roll out fire like dragons, destroying the world we love. I try not to burn up my world with rage. It is so hard.

And if I say to you that I am glad of everything we have done together, and sorry that we will not be here together in forty years, laughing at a faded photo of you impersonating a lion, it having withered well, you less so, as we stand fabulously old, in a city that understands what spirit it takes to be old, to be beautiful, to be much looked at, to be itself, to be never quite caught, to have a past, to be content, to have seen much, to have remained, to have continued...

What would it have meant to be happy? What would it have meant if things had been bright, clear, good between us?

There are only three possible endings -aren't there? - to any story: revenge, tragedy or forgiveness. That's it. All stories end like that.

When we let ourselves respond to poetry, to music, to pictures, we are clearing a space where new stories can root, in effect we are clearing a space for new stories about ourselves.