In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surr… - Elizabeth Gilbert

I walk up the stairs to my fourth-floor apartment, all alone. I let myself into my tiny little studio, all alone. I shut the door behind me. Another early bedtime in Rome. Another long night's sleep ahead of me, with nobody and nothing in my bed except a pile of Italian phrase books and dictionaries. I am alone, I am all alone, I am completely alone. Grasping this reality, I let go of my bag, drop to my knees, and press my forehead against the floor. There I offer up to the universe a fervent prayer of thanks. First in English. Then in Italian. And then — just to get the point across — in Sanskrit. And since I am already down there in supplication on the floor, let me hold that position as I reach back in time three years earlier to the moment where this entire story began — a moment that also found me in this exact same posture: on my knees, on a floor, praying.

I am a writer today because I learned to love reading as a child — and mostly on account of the Oz books.

I think I deserve something beautiful.