We came down from the trees, up from the grasslands, and into an SUV. We drove. We motored. We headed for that Texas horizon, flat as the flat-line o… - Andrea Lewis

One of the abiding mysteries of my life is the fact that lipstick disappears from my mouth five minutes after I put it on. I’m in awe of women who are always––always––lipstick intact, even during and after meals. I guess I’m a chronic lip-biter, lip-licker and mouth-wiper. But since I found out that the average woman eats nine pounds of lipstick in her lifetime, I can’t bring myself to reapply that often. Whatever chemicals they’ve added to make a lipstick long-wearing, I’d just swallow those too.

My plan... was to watch the Perseid meteor shower. ...before I died. But a call came in at midnight... I... started down New Mexico state road 44. The night was warm and clear, and I could hear the high desert all around me, breathing and stretching in the dark. Even as a little boy, I could see things––beyond what others saw—but now I could hear things too. ...Everything on the plateau hummed: the volcanic ridges and the red desert floor; the San Juan River and the Aztec Ruins; the spiny edges of and piñon, moving on the breeze.

Joy can come alive like that, when random pieces of history and rhythm, pause and expectation, melody and lyric, suddenly rearrange themselves into a pattern that leaps up, back against the wall, and catches your heart.