I followed all the rules - man's and God's. And you... followed none of them and they all loved you more - Jim Harrison

I've been lucky to spend a life pretty close to the earth up here in the north. I learned in those three days that the earth is so much more than I ever thought it was. It was a gift indeed to see all sides of everything at once. This makes it real hard to say good-bye. My family will be with me just like that old raven falling slowly down through the tree.

I have always collected my thoughts on Sunday, a habit enforced in my childhood when my father gave up on the church and turned to my own education with an energy that must be called unpleasant.

I must have awakened and fallen back to sleep a hundred times that night, listening to the wind rattle the palm fronds, the party noise of people jumping in the pool, the slurred shouts that the humidity and walls softened until all the words and dreams in the world became round.