People Grow Up By Living.

To Transform Experience And Thought Into Language And Narrative - That Is Beautiful Even If That Beauty Is In Brokenness.

Inside The Snow Globe On My Father's Desk, There Was A Penguin Wearing A Red-and-white-striped Scarf. When I Was Little My Father Would Pull Me Into His Lap And Reach For The Snow Globe. He Would Turn It Over, Letting All The Snow Collect On The Top, Then Quickly Invert It. The Two Of Us Watched The Snow Fall Gently Around The Penguin. The Penguin Was Alone In There, I Thought, And I Worried For Him. When I Told My Father This, He Said, "don't Worry, Susie; He Has A Nice Life. He's Trapped In A Perfect World.

If I Had But An Hour Of Love,if That Be All That Is Given Me,an Hour Of Love Upon This Earth,i Would Give My Love To Thee.

The Dead Are Never Exactly Seen By The Living, But Many People Seem Acutely Aware Of Something Changed Around Them. They Speak Of A Chill In The Air. The Mates Of The Deceased Wake From Dreams And See A Figure Standing At The End Of Thier Bed, Or In A Doorway, Or Boarding, Phantomlike, A City Bus.

But I Know I Would Not Go Out. I Had Taken This Time To Fall In Love Instead — In Love With The Sort Of Helplessness I Had Not Felt In Death — The Helplessness Of Being Alive, The Dark Bright Pity Of Being Human — Feeling As You Went, Groping In Corners And Opening Your Arms To Light - All Of It Part Of Navigating The Unknown.