UNCONCEALED.

“Love doesn’t conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.”

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

Change, I’ve come to understand, rises up like nausea: the promise of relief is what makes it bearable.

It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.

Look at what you are. Look at it. Look at your anger; why are you angry? Look at your jealousy; why are you jealous? Look at your envy; why are you envious? Look at your insecurities and understand why. Look at your judgments; why do you judge? Look at your unmercy; why aren’t you merciful? And look at your laughter; where is it?”

“Do you understand the sadness of geography?”

“Scars speak for you. They say you’re strong, and you’ve survived something that might have killed others.”

“The most basic thing about being human is taking a deep interest in the universe around you. All babies are born scientists. You can see them testing their ideas about the world. Unfortunately, lots of people lose that curiosity along the way.”

“Sometimes I feel like a caretaker of a museum — a huge, empty museum where no one ever comes, and I’m watching over it for no one but myself.”

“Learn how to be lonely. Learn what it’s like to know that you are coming home to yourself night after night- that empty is just another word for open.”

“You are drawn to the city because you want to disappear.”

“She wasn’t happy, but then she wasn’t unhappy. She wasn’t anything. But I don’t believe anyone is a nothing. There has to be something inside, if only to keep the skin from collapsing.”