And there it is: Even though we’re standing in the same patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a hundred thousand miles apart.

One of the strangest things about life is that it will chug on, blind and oblivious, even as your private world - your little carved-out sphere - is twisting and morphing, even breaking apart.

Something aches at the very core of me, something ancient and deep and stronger than words: the filament that joins each of us to the root of existence, that ancient thing unfurling and resisting and grappling, desperately, for a foothold, a way to stay here, breathe, keep going.

But how could anyone who's ever seen a summer - big explosion of green and skies lit up electric with splashy sunsets, a riot of flowers and wind that smells like honey - pick the snow?

Are you sure you can't dematerialize? Not even a little?" "I'm sure.

Additionally, Liesl and Po is the embodiment of what writing has always been for me at its purest and most basic--not a paycheck, certainly; not an idea, even; and not an escape. Actually, it is the opposite of an escape; it is a way back in, a way to enter and make sense of a world that occasionally seems harsh and terrible and mystifying. (From the "Author's Note" at the end).

I am growing stronger. I am a stone being excavated by the slow passage of water; I am wood charred by a fire.