Now that I knew fear, I also knew it was not permanent. As powerful as it was, its grip on me would loosen. It would pass.

I was the sort of kid who spent a Sunday afternoon prying little trees out of the foundation of his parents' house. I should have given in to the inevitable truth that this was the sort of person I would become, in the end, but I kept fighting it.

Your life feels different on you, once you greet death and understand your heart's position. You wear your life like a garment from the mission bundle sale ever after - lightly because you realize you never paid nothing for it, cherishing because you know you won't ever come by such a bargain again.

Freedom, I found is not only in the running but in the heart, the mind, the hands.

The contents of a house can trigger all sorts of revisions to family history.

It kills your writing if you try to manipulate it with crude politics.

We are conjured voiceless out of nothing and must return to an unknowing state. What happens in between is an uncontrolled dance, and what we ask for in love is no more than a momentary chance to get the steps right, to move in harmony until the music stops.