I'm One Of Those Perverse People Who

One Curiosity Of Being A Foreigner Everywhere Is That One Finds Oneself Discerning Edens Where The Locals See Only Purgatory.

I Think That Foreignness Is Always With You. Indeed, I Find California More Foreign To Me The Longer I Live Here. In Thirty Years Of Living Here On And Off, It Hasn't Lost Anything Of Foreignness. If Anything, It Has Gained.

What More Could One Ask Of A Companion? To Be Forever New And Yet Forever Steady, To Be Strange And Familiar All At Once, With Enough Change To Quicken My Mind, Enough Steadiness To Give Sanctuary To My Heart. The Books On My Shelf Never Asked To Come Together And They Would Not Trust Or Want To Listen To One Another. But Each Is A Piece Of A Stained-glass Whole, Without Which I Wouldn’t Make Sense To Myself Or To The World Outside.

Suffering Is A Privilege. It Moves Us Toward Thinking Of Essential Things And Shakes Us Out Of Complacency. Calamity Cracks You Open, Moves You To Change Your Ways.

In An Age Of Distraction, Nothing Can Feel More Luxurious Than Paying Attention.