Hope is not attached to outcomes but is a state of mind, as Vaclav Havel says, "an orientation of the spirit." And I have faith; maybe more than hope, I have faith. I think of my great-grandmother, Vilate Lee Romney, who came from good pioneer Mormon stock. She always said to us that faith without works is dead, so I think if we have hope, we must work to further that hope. Maybe that is the most important thing of all, to have our faith rooted in action.

I think our lack of intimacy with the land has initiated a lack of intimacy with each other. What we perceive as non- human, outside of us, is actually in direct relationship with us.

If so, then it was also here where I came to know I can survive what hurts. I believed in my capacity to stand back up and run into the waves again and again, no matter the risk.

I was extremely close with my mother and my grandmothers, we shared our lives - fully, honestly - and it was heightened as each succumbed to cancer. Little was hidden between us. No time. And what was hidden, turned inward. I made a vow to speak. Speak or die.

When I write, I put one foot in front of the other. It's an act of faith. I just follow my heart.

My family lives all around me. We see each other daily. It's very, very complicated. I think that families hold us together and they split us apart.

I was invited to give the Freshmen Convocation at Florida Gulf Coast University on October 24, 2004. My book The Open Space of Democracy had been selected as one of the "common readers" for the university's 1,050 entering freshmen. On October 6, William Merwin, the president of Florida Gulf Coast, made the decision to "postpone" the convocation. He cited negative statements I had made in print about President Bush. If our colleges and universities are no longer the champions and protectors of free speech, then no voice in this country is safe.