We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.

Tom Brown, Jr.

I too have known loneliness.

I too have known what it is to feel misunderstood,

rejected, and not at all

beautiful.

Oh, mother earth,

your comfort is great.

Your arms never withhold.

It has saved my life to know this.

Your rivers flowing, your roses,

opening in the morning.

Oh, motions of tenderness!

Mary Oliver

Time does not give one much leeway: it thrusts us forward from behind, blows us through the narrow tunnel of the present into the future. But space is broad, teeming with possibilities, positions, intersections, passages, detours, U-turns, dead-ends, one-way streets. Too many possibilities, indeed.

Susan Sontag