She smiled. “Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories. Good night, my dear Nao.

My mind is like a gyre and odd juxtapositions happen.

She missed the built environment of New York City. It was only in an urban landscape, amid straight lines and architecture, that she could situate herself in human time and history. She missed people. She missed human intrigue, drama and power struggles. She needed her own species, not to talk to, necessarily, but just to be among, as a bystander in a crowd or an anonymous witness.

It was really a means-of-production problem. It costs so much to make films. With a novel, you can write the whole thing on a ream of paper from Staples for $4.

Even though I was making documentaries, my films had fictional elements to them. I think I like blurring those distinctions because so much of what we see on television purports to be the truth, but it's often largely imaginary - or wishful thinking, or any number of less honorable things.

The important thing was that we were being polite and not saying all the things that were making us unhappy, which was the only way we knew how to love each other.

An unfinished book. left unattended, turns feral, and she would need all her focus, will and ruthless determination to tame it again.