There is nothing about the past that I miss. I want to explore the now and future, conquistador of bigger & better things. There were (and still are) days when I tried not to feel (anything): days were continuous sunsets and endings, the texture of a darkening landscape across some overwhelming scope of sky, then night. Night is too infinite for me. Now I’m full of sunrise and no marked paths and nothing but the realization that this moment, that and the next are part of the future and a part of being full and filling and overspilling. I realize, in the middle of this desert and exhausting sand and grit and rare cactus flower, that the sky still reflects the sea and I can see it from here in the all-consuming heat. I had coffee tonight with someone who held her head like a different woman, & I think I feel new too. Things are going to be better than okay for the rest of my life.