The birch trees loom ahead like a brotherhood of ghosts.

As I say the words, I realize how true they are. And maybe that's the trick to getting through it, through life: realizing that everybody, including ourselves, is lugging around some kind of screwed-up baggage. Maybe we are put here to help each other carry the loads.

They say no land remains to be discovered, no continent is left unexplored. But the whole world is out there, waiting, just waiting for me. I want to do things-- I want to walk the rain-soaked streets of London, and drink mint tea in Casablanca. I want to wander the wastelands of the Gobi desert and see a yak. I think my life's ambition is to see a yak. I want to bargain for trinkets in an Arab market in some distant, dusty land. There's so much. But, most of all, I want to do things that will mean something.

My sparrow, she flickers and wakes and sings and sings.

And at that moment, a lilting melody lifts to the moon as a single sparrow sings.

What place does a woman have here, in the realm of men?

Still, I look down, and the grass is so green, I cannot understand how it does not wither and die with sorrow. ~Song of the Sparrow