I walked out of the forest and found you at a party. I didn’t know the people, but it was my house. And somehow, I knew you. Your friends were there with open bottles of wine and flight plans the next day. And we made eye contact and you smiled. …

We hear the sirens they blare late at night accompanied by flashing lights. Big moments crash into life they force themselves onto us and take over. These cracks grow until there’s nowhere to step until there’s nothing but the crisis. Yet beauty always comes in the quiet, chenmo, in the space of bliss experienced from within. It’s so hard to get away from ringing bells and from the urgent needs of a life lived on the frontier.

When you were born, I made a promise, to protect you. It was a promise buried deep in my bones something I was born with, like a gift from the soil. It was a promise to hold you to wipe away your tears to give you a role model to pick…

A night in blue the tones of it color the sky and shade the buildings. It shares the scene with young lovers and old friends; it plays a long note in a jazz score. The blue travels like a wisp from one to another; it captures a moment like a whisper from a lover who was first your best friend. The warmth of blue, the promise of midnight the blurred moment from a sip of wine, the clinking of glasses and the sharing of good company. The wisp transports us to a promise—

I’m the asshole. Let me explain. I watched a couple. His hair was thinning. Her nose was too big. His gut hung over his belt. Her boobs sagged. His penis too small. Her 40 time too high. His laugh too loud. Her voice too quiet. Etc. And yet, they had each…

there is beauty in your bones it’s more than appearance it’s in an effervescence that bubbles to the surface when you’re handing a steaming bowl of soup to a sick loved one there is beauty in your heart that beats quietly and triumphs over the stress of your conditions that emerges when you’re exhausted from the day but you push on there is beauty in your humor it’s a laugh that embraces the absurd that finds the light even when the night has come and all seems dark

Cobblestone brick streets lined a back alley, and the moon escaped behind the brick building. We poured out of a little door, laughing, drunk, jolly. A kind of lightness mixed with fraternity. We agreed to meet up the next day, over brunch, before stumbling home. And my journey took me past…

It makes my heart beat like a drum. It fills me with warmth and makes me feel intoxicated. It’s the kind of thing that drives men mad. It’s more addictive than heroin. It has more copycats than gold. You can’t mine for it, and the real sense is more precious…

Nothing. Pure and complete— a moment without ego, without survival, a moment among the stars. The beauty of an ocean, a vast bounty before me, coral and bright colors, a tropical stretch beyond the noise. To feel, briefly, a part of the whole, a world at work, interconnected, if ephemeral. …