I Went To Shea Stadium And Used

I Thought About One Of My Favorite Sufi Poems, Which Says That God Long Ago Drew A Circle In The Sand Exactly Around The Spot Where You Are Standing Right Now. I Was Never Not Coming Here. This Was Never Not Going To Happen.

There Is A Level Of Grief So Deep That It Stops Resembling Grief At All. The Pain Becomes So Severe That The Body Can No Longer Feel It. The Grief Cauterizes Itself, Scars Over, Prevents Inflated Feeling. Such Numbness Is A Kind Of Mercy.

In 1954, Pope Pius Xi, Of All People, Sent Some Vatican Delegates On A Trip To Libya With These Written Instructions: "do Not Think That You Are Going Among Infidels. Muslims Attain Salvation, Too. The Ways Of Providence Are Infinite.

The Yogic Sages Say That All The Pain Of A Human Life Is Caused By Words, As Is All The Joy. We Create Words To Define Our Experience And Those Words Bring Attendant Emotions That Jerk Us Around Like Dogs On A Leash. We Get Seduced By Our Own Mantras (i'm A Failure I'm Lonely I'm A Failure I'm Lonely) And We Become Monuments To Them. To Stop Talking For A While, Then, Is To Attempt To Strip Away The Power Of Words, To Stop Choking Ourselves With Words, To Liberate Ourselves From Our Suffocating Mantras.

Despite Having Written Five Books, I Worry That I Have Not Written The Right Kinds Of Books, Or That Perhaps I Have Dedicated Too Much Of My Life To Writing, And Have Therefore Neglected Other Aspects Of My Being.