For ever and for ever when I move

In anticipation of Christmas
My darling child
Has become an insomniac
Staying up all hours to sticker
His books
And waking in the night;

Singing carols,
Arranging gifts around the tree,
Laughing like Santa, with a ho-ho-ho

Dreaming of footsteps on the roof

Dancing
In anticipation
Of the joy, the surprise

His first remembering
And this time shared
His memories of Christmas.

I wonder occasionally
If I will survive

Hearing his little voice in the night
As it breaks the silence
Like an electric shock to my system:

Mama, mama —

Just as I am drifting into the abyss
The sweet darkness of sleep
And there
A little voice
Calling me.

But I try to remember
The magic
Of the Christmas lights around the tree
The sacred stillness
After hours and avoiding sleep
Bridging the worlds between,
A child in the world of his parents’ making

The beauty of the world
Unfolding
And magic all around.

These days my evenings are spent with my little ones, hunting for the illusive doorway that guards their passage between wake and sleep. Time twists and turns, hours vanishing in our search. Elusive, evasive, how their little bodies scream and scramble from bed to bed, in and out and over and under, onto the floor and into the air they dance their song of resistance. Howls echo off the walls, screams and laughter crash and resonate through the air. Experimentations in sound, bouncing vibrations and curious faces. Giggles abound, mirroring between the two of them, and daring songs in tiny voices that warm my listening heart with wonder. Energy, boundless bouncing energy, bouncing, banging on the wall, banging, bouncing off the walls: Where does all this energy come from? And who summoned it so, at bedtime?

Where is the sweetness of the night that lures our softened eyes to sleep, gentle, love, that calls to us? Darkness has already drawn the light out of the room, and yet it’s in and out of bed and into bed once more. I call to their minds to soothe their small bodies as we recollect memories of our days and slowly welcome the night that surrounds us: moonlight and creatures of the night, we call to you to soothe us. We sing to you. We open to the night, and leave the glare of the light of day behind. Details begin to shift and blur, the energy dissipates as we drift into another frame of mind. Gentle now, for these little hearts that love so freely, how they hate to leave this world of the waking and drift away into sleep. Mother’s voice is singing now. Softly, softly, with kisses that shore’d us onto the bank of sleep, drifting into the mists that shroud the mind, heads drift gently onto the pillows one final time, little fingers that curl around small creature comforts and then gently, gently, eyes that close, how softly do they drift away.

It happens at the same moment, ere they go. I can tangibly feel the moment that sleep settles into the room. It is there with us. One moment we are calling and calling and it never seems to come, and then suddenly it is here, settled amidst us, and they are asleep and the day is over. A few whimpers of a dream, perhaps, else all is quiet. The warm, soft rise and fall of our breaths within our bodies. The gentle glow of the night light in the corner. The serenity of peaceful sleeping bodies and the warm hum that resonates between us. Other-worldly, within this world. There is beauty here. Something sacred, something still. Slumber that holds space for dreams, in the warm comfort of blankets. Good night, sleep tight, my darling ones, the moon is on the rise.

After a summer of blazing sun and scorched gardens, the rains slowly begin to settle in again over the land. Stormy clouds lay heavy and threatening in the skies, making our bodies languid. These days in these early years we are laying of the foundation of these selves we want to be. The pieces fall together like Tetris: odd chunks here and there, awkward and misused and unsure before suddenly the magical connection is made and everything fits. It slowly becomes easier. Understanding is made. Relationships are difficult, and staying in them is harder still. Boundaries aren’t just set in stone: The edges are painstakingly discovered through fault and error, lost in the mist until through some painful overstep they are definitively laid. Never again, we say, only to feel the ground beneath our feet change once again as the people we are, the people we once were, and the people we said we would be slowly shifts and changes. We catch our footing. We lose it again. We make compromise, and settle back into love. For self, and lover. Mother, and child. One to the other. Always in relationship.

After the second baby I could understand the parameters of my mind, the shrouding of the mists that descended upon my consciousness. Some clarity allowed me to follow each thread until there, just there: a cold stone wall lay silent, blocking any further thought. Here is the end of the road. Here my mind meets stone, cold to the touch and unmovable, solid beneath the mists. Something must give. A retreat must be made, back to the warmth of physical touch, back to the hearth of home. Back to the familiar and the loving, back to the self. What is unnecessary is no longer accessible. Perhaps by means of survival, a new physical code: a way of remembering how to live. Within.

I alone passed through that portal, in isolation at the edge of the world, screaming into the shoulder of my lover as the drawbridge, rickety iron, metal and stone, fire and mists, flesh and bone, was opened. When I looked for god I found only silence, bathed in light. One quiet moment to rest gently, panting, until the moment is over and the time has come, the body beckons and it is time to push. Push with all your being, with a groan that emanates from your deepest soul. Twist, and fall. Hear those miraculous newborn screams replace these mothered moans; we are here, we are here, we are here. Another baby placed in my arms. Another tiny soul.

And from this point, the blockages begin to free up. Energy begins to flow anew. The body is slow, there are still shadows and echos that reverberate and confuse and hold us back, but progress is being made. There is a warm vibration within that longs to strengthen its resonance, that slowly and surely is finding ground. Compromise, and love, and humour to save the day. One step forward. No longer stepping back, find a way to hold steady. The time has come to grow, let your roots spread deeper as you find your way back home, back to yourself.

The days grow shorter and it won’t be long before we’ll depend on the flicker of fire to carry us through the night. Bare feet in the grass and the summer is passing. The shimmering glint of sunshine sparkles on the waves and the sound of summer expands longingly over the beach before, with a splash, one more dive, one more laugh, one more shake of the head as the salt splashes off your body and you emerge from the water, body cool in the heat of the day and once again, one more time, hurry up please, please, it’s time to go.

Standing on the slip together
With you in my arms
Watching the waves thunder as they
Draw in from the sea, heavy rolling
To crash with exultation against shore
Before dissipating into bubbles,
Dancing on the surface of the deep.

The seagulls fly over the waves
Small heads craning side to side,
Wings planing gently against the wind,
Their cries echo distant to greet us.

Across the water the shadows
Of the land shrouded in mist.

I feel a tenderness
Melting softly like butter
Across freshly baked bread.
Not that shit margarine
Not a loaf from the shop
But something I kneaded myself
With a dash of pride
From my own two hands.

The mist turns to rain &
We walk home again.

We pull in, spot Mick standing beside his car, and are lucky enough to find parking nearby. The buzz of the arcade rings in the background as people bustle to and from the little shops on the harbor, takeaways and ice cream stands and souvenir shops beside the B&B’s, historic hotels and immutable pubs. The flow of holidayers is constant, bustling, bursting. Beneath it all is the clang of the harbor as the wind whips the sails and the boats rock back and forth, anchored in place. Our hair whips around our faces and we greet each other with hopeful expectation.

It seems comical that we are here, in a dried out, relentless sort of way. That we three be standing here, tossed so far out of rhythm [normalcy, standard] that we now meet here, in this parking lot: so stripped of our creature comforts as to be searching for a genuine spark in the midst of such inanity. It seems that what was once there is now so indescribably lost, lost with the chaotic disorder of Mick’s house, lost with the last notes of song that was our two souls rising together in the flames, striving to ascend, to aspire, to rise above and leave behind.

And now, one pang of loss which resonates all the more deeply: the slender beauty of the neck, the warm glow of the enchantingly thin rosewood body, the laughing magic of the moon. The aged scent that filled the room upon being taken out of the box, the spirit that danced at his fingertips whilst being played. The love that flickered between us, the vision that we shared. Now gone. The heart twists, the soul guts. The heart guts, the soul twists, the brain retracts in horror.

We weren’t immediately aware of what had been done, the meaning of the sacrifice that had been made. How one brash step made in a moment of weakness could cast us so far out. Realization happens suddenly, wrenching the mind out of rhythmic illusion and harshly into reality. A cold splash of water. The sudden feeling of falling. One guitar for another guitar. The wrong tool for the right tool, or so it seemed at the time. A mathematical calculation presenting an impulsive solution, fueled by the physics of desire. Interference from others creates conflict in the sphere of self, muddying the water, loosening the grip, leading back again to loss. History repeats itself, a different sequence but casting the same shadow, swallowing us whole.

So here we are, standing in the parking lot of the suicide resort. Searching for redemption. Holding off our despair. A family of five walks past us one by one and into the arcade. Then two teenage parents pushing a buggy pass by, where the small child holds an ice cream cone that’s dripping steadily down his arm. He doesn’t mind. He seems to enjoy it all the more for the mess. Mick shuffles through the pile of instrument cases in the back of his 90’s blue Volkswagon, a choice selection from his expansive trove of vintage instruments. We wait to see what will happen.

We are here to see a 1950’s Gretsch guitar, a black rimmed sunburst. The hope and expectation is tangible, a tight ball of anticipation that gathers and glimmers in the air around us as Mick slides the case onto the roof of the car and opens it up. At the first glance of the guitar I can feel the anticipation vanish, instantly, quiet as a corpse. I see it in his face: the dimming glow in his eyes as his heart falls through his chest and into his sinking stomach. There is no promise of music from this instrument. It has passed through too many hands, it has seen too many years. Too much has been altered. There is no enticing whisper, no call, no echo of magic at all. It is silent. Silent as a shoebox. Useless as they come.

So we look politely at his other novelties and then move on our way, back to the car. Our motions are brushed with sadness, surrounded by silence. The realization of loss in a life bound by time and circumstance. Physical objects have the power to carry within them the essence of the heart; they can act as catalysts for the manifestation of the soul. Yet all things that are held will eventually be lost. We can only determine that each loss may serve to draw us closer again to the realization of our purpose. Or is that just the hopeful musing of an overactive ego? Do all things come full circle, is it just a matter of time?

As we make the slow drive home, it’s apparent that these are the final days of summer. The bustling streets have in them the bittersweet feeling of ending. It is the last weekend before school starts; both the beginning and the end. The seasons continue their rotation, summer falling once again to autumn’s allure.

So once again it’s back home for us, back to the cold kettle to fill with water to make a cup of tea, back to the cold hearth to make a spark that we may sit again beside the fire. To warm our bodies in an effort to stave off the darkness of night.

I rarely use this blog to address specific topics or issues. In fact, this is hereto unheard of. However, as so many crucial events are currently unfolding within in our society, I’d like to join the conversation and contribute my voice.

A few days ago, the Supreme Court made a ruling that all states in the union must now recognize same-sex marriages. Effectively, the ruling is forcing states to eliminate discrimination against same-sex marriages. This is a social issue. It is a lifting of the restrictions placed against individuals that exist within and contribute to our society. While they are a specific demographic subset in the population, they still have needs. It is critically important to understand the case from the eyes of the individuals whom it directly impacts. As a society, we should be always pushed towards improving the conditions of humanity around us. Moving from the individual perspective to one which upholds the concerns of a collective society requires empathy. Continue reading

Pink, yellow, green, blue: The soft pink of apple blossoms that settle beneath rusty red clusters of leaves in the scraggly branches of our tree; the vibrant yellow gorse flowers in full bloom on the stiff, rugged bushes beneath; the clear blue of the daylight sky beneath the cold, bright sun; the green lawn overgrown, scattered with swamp-like miniature cattails and patches of daisies.

These are the colors of spring: cold, clear spring, with periodic showers, occasional days of heavy gray skies and chilly rains, the last grasping clutches of the misty gloom of winter. It is the fire that keeps us warm, in this house built on stilts beside the sea. We chop the wood into quarters outside the front door, to keep the fire hungry; coal, to keep the fire hot. Shovelful by shovelful, to make this rustic cave a home.

Beneath all human ambition there exists a cold, concentrating core, tight with tension, motivated by desire. Desire to maintain, desire to create. Desire to change the present situation from the circumstances under which it is subject to those which the creator envisions. Tight pressure from within, rippling out, creating change. Seeking more. The waves lap at the sandy, pebbled shore, crashing and shaping the clay-slate landscape of the rugged coast; the hungry surface of a greater depth.

We walk the coastline, through grasses and across trickling brooks which feed into the sea, gathering pocketfuls of smooth rounded stones, perfect dusky shells with their opalescent centers, smooth bits of driftwood worn white from the salt of the waves. The birds chirp their continuous song, passed from one tree to another until it is lost in the murmur of the waves, crashing against the shore, pulling back into the sea.

Ready we are, with a sure and steady foot, stepping quickly into the changing tides: mind and body to accompany the soul, hand in hand, forward we go.

Things happen quickly. The combinations spin in accordance with our own personal desires. Send out an impulse, an option will rise. Echolocation of the brain to the physical manifestation of opportunity, to set in motion the happening. The specificity of the happening correlates to the clarity of the desire, of the impulse set in motion.

The strangest part of riding a train is the idea that your body is attached to that distant whistle, as it echoes ahead of the train and signals passage through the sparsely scattered towns that lay along the tracks. The whistle screeches and the carriages follow after it, rattling along, attached but separate, a fixed and continuous distance from the sound. Instead of sitting safely in one of those houses, sipping a cup of tea, observing for a moment as the train flashes past; you are flying past the houses, attached to the whistle, making your way. There are other faces on the train with you. They mind their own business, they talk amongst themselves. The pace of the train is slow, it takes time to get there. They fall asleep, hugging their  briefcases, sprawled out in their seats. You sit at the window and your body is lulled by the motion of the train, the minuscule sideways rocking smoothly contained within the controlled forward velocity. Your mind wanders at the scenery flashing by, it eases its cognitive grip, it looses into something like a dream.

The whistle screams somewhere ahead, your body follows smoothly behind.

Opportunities arise in accordance with the depth and clarity of our desires.

The rhythm of the train is hypnotic, the blur of surroundings mesmeric. The desire is to stay on to the end of the line, the desire is to get off and spend some time. Back and forth, the train is always moving, the town is always staying. The whistle echoes through both. On and off, back and forth, time and time again.

Ireland: the land of music and laughter. Unlike many of my American friends and acquaintances, I don’t have Irish roots. I never truly felt the magic of St. Patrick’s Day, my family has been Lutheran for as long as time, my skin turns a lovely shade of brown in the sun, and my only association with red hair is an enduring adoration for the classy sass it portrays when paired with lipstick and freckles. However, as luck comes to luck, I was plopped onto a ferry at Holyhead, headed for Dublin, with no plans, no lifetime ambition for coming to Ireland, no idea what I might want to do or see.

And here I am, two weeks later, gradually getting my socks charmed off by the hospitable and humorous Irish. Galway, with the sunny cobblestoned streets full of gorgeous young musicians: a beaming tap dancer, a duo paired on harp and Irish accordion, a street performer with genuinely hilarious jokes, four boys in green traditional vests with smiles as big as the sun. A little old lady stopped by me as the crowd gathered on the street to watch the band, the cello player dancing as he played, all four whooping together with giant, contagious grins: “Aren’t they lovely, then?” she smiled at me, “Even me, I’m old and oh, aren’t they just lovely? God bless them.”

After a quiet celebration of the fourth of July–American flags dancing in the streets outside the pubs, possibly united by the common joy of escaping British rule–we moved on to the Aran Islands, to Inis Meáin: desolate, totally unique, known for its truly preserved use of Gaelic, unlike anything I have seen in the world. “God’s country, that is,” an Irish woman told me in the market after starting conversation with me when she saw me looking at wines. “It’s incredible, I haven’t been in years, but my memories of it… I first went when I was 18, and then again when I was 28… I’m always waiting to go back.”

“The end of the world, it is,” another woman said. “Just drops off there, you know. That’s the edge of it.” And the island is silent, not polluted by traffic sounds, only the quiet buzz of the few electric poles that run alongside the two perpendicular roads, very few bird calls, the occasional echoing moo of a cow a mile away. The island is covered by walls: rock walls four to five foot high, dividing the small rocky isle into hundred upon thousands of miniature square plots.

“Well, some of the walls are for property division, of course,” the man at the B&B informed us. “But I do believe some of it is for surface clearance,” which really got us cracking up, despite the truth of it. The island is basically a mass of rock, which over the last hundreds of thousands of years people have been breaking up into smaller chunks of rock, which are piled into walls, thus clearing the surface for plants or livestock: two cows here, a couple of mules across the way, the occasional bleating sheep. One day we left with the intention of walking completely around the island, which led us through a seemingly abandoned countryside of walls. We crossed an ancient fort (of piled rocks), along the coastline (where we stopped to eat in a sheltered cove of piled rocks), to the entirely desolate opposite side of the island, where we stumbled across the most incredible, staggering display of seaside cliffs.

Cormorants washed and played in the waterfalls as they splashed down alongside the cliffs, seagulls effortlessly gliding above the view, curiously cocking their heads to look at me as they passed. A fresh spray of salty mist splashed againt my face as I crawled close to the edge. Not a soul in sight, and possibly the most breathtaking landscape I’ve seen in my life. We walked along the coast for at least an hour, drinking it in, not seeing a single other person in the whole time we were there. After some time, the coast flattened down back to sea level and we attempted to cut inland through the labyrinth to make it back to the one road on the island: after 20 minutes of walking, we were clearly trapped and had to retrace our steps back to the coastline. So many walls. Could drive one to insanity.

Dublin has become an international city, like so many other European capital cities: flush with diversity, innumerable languages on the street, vibrant with city life, totally illogical traffic signaling that often leaves pedestrians stranded on concrete islands in the middle of opposing lanes of rushing traffic. Everything ‘Irish’ is bartered at a price: culture and history branded for money, authenticity replaced by flashing tourist traps at exorbitant prices, everyone is a tourist and everyone is drinking Guinness. I met only the occasional Irish lad working in the pub that was able to lighten up the scene by cracking jokes.

So I escaped south to Wexford, in a quiet town tucked just off the beach*, right on the coast of the Irish Sea. I spent my birthday laying on the beach and swimming in the salty sea, floating effortlessly at the surface of the water. In the pubs here everyone drinks Heineken or Carlsberg, possibly capping off the night with a Guinness. The pubs are full of laughter and music: it seems to be a requirement that the music be played live, cover songs and requests, the occasional jaunt into rebel songs and traditional folk songs a must. Jokes are played at the offense of friends or neighbors, the beer flows strong and everyone has a laugh waiting to surface: “Bloody hell, man, whaddya’ doing wearing my shorts?” yelled one very tall man to a much shorter man in high-waters, causing the two tables to roar.  “Make sure you put ’em back just where you found ’em!” In another pub, a friend of a friend is a musician, his voice for singing, curly red hair cropped close to his head, reddish-blonde stubble on his face, eyes glowing with mischief and humor, a sort of restlessness in his motions: he told stories like a god, perfectly painting the scene and inviting the listeners in, humor evident throughout. I hung on his words, “Tell another story, please, would you?” and we delved into conversation about stardust and the luck of the universe. His friend was a realist painter, trained from a young age: “What was his name, again?” I asked, met only with, “Ah, I donno man.” Which I confusedly but solidly believed.

Trailing from gig to gig, we ended up overlooking the coastline as the sun began to set. There were about six of us, all ages, sitting on the picnic benches with a pint: conversation flowed into songs which flowed back into conversation. Effortlessly, one person would start to sing and suddenly we’d all join in, clapping and snapping along. The light was sucked slowly out of the sky and absorbed into the water, transforming from deep steely blue to a pink-tinged silver. Someone grabbed a guitar, and then another person went to his car for a banjo, and we were joined by some men from a nearby pub, who sang and clapped and threw out compliments: “I loved your voice there, the way it blends with the guitar. It’s really lovely, that is.” And as we retired at the end of the night, everyone was appreciative and kind, inviting the musicians to come back, wishing everyone well as we floated off to our respective places.

Musicians and artists and rebels, the lot of ’em. It’s the people that make Ireland, just as I’ve always been told. A hidden charm, buried in kindness and humor. Give it time, let Ireland soak you up. And the longer I stay, the move evident it becomes that there is something undeniably unique about this Kingdom of Éire, land of musicians and poets and artists, this misty green, gorgeous island settled in the ocean at the edge of the world.

Another week or two of vacation in Ireland for me and then it’s back to chasing trains in Scotland. Cheers, to your good health! Moving on today to the south of Ireland! Sláinte!

*Apologies from the writer. A misstatement regarding the town of Riverchapel was written based on rumor and not fact. I had a relaxing stay in the Beaches Youth Hostel (more like an apartment share than a hostel) and would highly recommend a stay to anyone looking for a peaceful day or two tucked away from the city and near the beach. 

Recently, as I was sitting at lunch with one of my dear friends, meeting her mother for the first time, we cracked open a bottle of wine and delved into stories. Travel stories, stories about people, about ourselves, about the past and how it leads into our hopes for the future. With the newfound presence of her mother, the lens to access these familiar stories was changed; a new perspective was present, which lead to an entirely new presentation and projection of these past experiences.

The truth is, most of my stories are largely untold. I travel to collect them, to garner these experiences which I tuck somewhere in the back of my heart, and they stumble out with strangers, occasionally with friends, and in short anecdotes or jokes, with family. I rarely know what stories I will tell. Sometimes I feel stuffed with so many stories that none of them will come out, that I’ll continually be an overstuffed cookie bear with all the cookies smashed up inside losing their shape and context. The chocolate melts into the dough and I can’t remember which flight it was, what country that was, who it was I shared that coffee with, where exactly this piece of clothing came from.

Yet, when I travel, my stories are vivid, they are present, they are shared. It is so easy to meet other travelers, some of whom have similar experiences, and what begins as a meeting turns into an exchange of memories. Details are sometimes so similar that one is able to immediately feel a connection with a stranger, and a greater web of connection between humanity is begun. It might be meeting a local from one of the countries I have traveled, such as meeting Germans in southern Spain, cracking jokes about Darmstadt and bananabier. It may be meeting another traveler who has had a similar experience, and in discovering such similarities we are able to instantly bond: such as meeting an Australian girl who was similarly berated at customs while trying to get into the United Kingdom, or meeting a French couple and exchanging stories and emotions about how families in Nepal were so incredibly willing to open their homes and their hearts, or meeting a Slovenian girl whose dream is to go to Korea. Sometimes it is merely a shared desire to go to a country: daydreaming about the mystical natural beauty of Laos; talking about Croatia or Greece or Turkey; getting lost in stories you’ve only heard from others about Costa Rica, or Peru, or Chile.

Sometimes the connection may consist of meeting someone from home who has similar mindsets and misses similar things. The nearness of your common heartbeat is a unique comfort: understanding the value of a hug over a kiss, missing traditional American-style coffee, talking about the beauty of lazy Minnesota cabin days and how summer on the lake may be the most perfect place in all the world.

I travel to learn empathy, to see the world through others’ eyes. I often forget the boundaries of my self when traveling, losing the edges of my American accent, passively following instead of speaking my mind, unable to decide on a place to eat despite hunger tearing up and receding into a dull ache as my feet pass restaurant after restaurant after restaurant, sometimes going to bed hungry because I just don’t feel like going to the effort of making a decision and eating alone.

Yet this aloneness is necessary to create experience, and the stories that result are what bring us together. It is the individual responsibility to garner and stitch together the basic framework of the stories, but it is the people we are lucky enough to meet and share our stories with that give us context, meaning, depth.

I travel to leave and I travel to return home. It is both the coming and the going that gives depth and growth to the human spirit, for it is necessary to understand and witness not only the cultures of others, but to view the culture in which one was raised and to see what is familiar through fresh, foreign eyes: to panic about wasting water as you listen to the sound of friends washing the dishes, to feel despair at the endless expansion of American suburbia, to question whether work ought to be the function and purpose of life, to understand the culture of food in entirely different ways, to question the immediate acceptance we have toward routines and habits that exist merely because, “That’s how it is, that’s how it’s always been,” instead of saying that things ought to be done differently because they could be done better.

The more I travel, the more I realize that there exists no one correct way to live; it is only the circumstances we have and the decisions we make and the priorities we choose that dictate the fullness, depth and experience of our life. It is what we choose to do with what we have, and how seriously we take our selves, the dreams and desires that come out of the heart, and how deeply we respect the lives of others in the decisions we make. Culture, values, food, and climate vary greatly; gender roles, hierarchies of respect, and freedom of decision culturally intersect at polar opposites across the world; the value of work versus play, the value of education, the value of health as a social or individual responsibility are starkly divided. But we are all human, we are all born and we will all reach the end of our life, where we will inevitably die. While spiritual, governmental, cultural and religious systems have all been created to deal with this system of life and death, and these vary greatly in context and practice, we the individuals are integrally, at our very core, the same.

It is my belief that the greatest thing which connects us, as humans, in facilitating understanding across all manner of boundaries, most especially when told with an open heart and mind (those of which create the ability to tolerate varying degrees and understandings of truth), is stories.  Each of us is nothing but the stories we have. We need stories, to deepen our self and to connect us with others. Stories to help us remember who we are and to give us understanding of our role among others. We are nothing but the stories we have, and the whole experience of life is given meaning by our ability to share these stories with others.

If this were my rallying cry, I would cry: So go on, go out there! Wherever it is you must go. Live your stories and open your heart and share them with others. This is the life, this is what we have, it is our personal and individual duty to live it as best we can. One day, we will die. We will all die. And our stories will die with us. All we can do is share them now with the people we love. It is the best of what we have, and one of the only ways of understanding who and what we are. Make your stories, be your stories. And if you’re not happy with your stories, make new ones. This is it. Here we are. So go.

***

Are we all happy? John, my adopted English grandfather, asks Esther and me. Are we happy, is it fair? That’s what’s most important. We must be happy, and everything must be divided equally. Are you happy then, my dears?