Now I become myself. It’s taken time, many years and places.

Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.

I suppose real old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward

Poetry has a way of teaching one what one needs to know ... if one is honest.

The more our bodies fail us, the more naked and more demanding is the spirit, the more open and loving we can become if we are not afraid of what we are and of what we feel. I am not a phoenix yet, but here among the ashes, it may be that the pain is chiefly that of new wings trying to push through.

Miracles cannot be explained, that is their miraculous nature.