Everything is biographical, Lucian Freud says. What we make, why it is made, how we draw a dog, who it is we are drawn to, why we cannot forget. Everything is collage, even genetics. There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border we cross.

Some events take a lifetime to reveal their damage and influence.

Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again.

Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.

...the heart is an organ of fire.

We own the country we grow up in, or we are aliens and invaders.

The joyful will stoop with sorrow, and when you have gone to the earth I will let my hair grow long for your sake, I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion