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2009 In The Rear-View Mirror
A year ago I had just moved from a country that didn’t want me to a bare echoey white place hidden under a stifling canopy of tall dark trees. I adore trees, and loved lying in bed looking at green branches, but the bare echoey place had an inner emptiness that rang loudly in my ears. Plus it had weird carpet. In the spring I discovered forested trails and alternate universes. I sat, motionless, sometimes for hours, staring out through a skylight and eventually emerging into a giddy, childlike state, a person who thought lakes were oceans and wondered whether she should be driving real cars. A year ago I…
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Brilliance
Q: Does time really slow down when you’re in an accident? A: Yes. Oh yes. I bought a motorcycle. The whole idea originated at about the time I fell out of an airplane, when doing things that made my heart stop and that created the World’s Largest Sudden Outburst of Endorphins made a lot more sense. I left New Zealand with the conviction that above all else, I must procure a motorcycle license, and soon! The class to get the license was sort of funny. About two-thirds of the students already owned motorcycles, had been riding around illegally on them for years, maybe, and were just now getting around to…
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Wandering, Times Three
At 24, on weekends (when I had them off) for a while, I took to walking through the too-large, too-empty colorless high-ceilinged rooms of my new house, walking slowly past the new furniture, wondering where my soul had gone. Time stretched into frightening nothingness and it seemed that by walking — slowly, endlessly walking — I could somehow fill that void. It’s easy to find ways to fill up the void. Having a job that you take home nights and weekends, every night and every weekend. Having children. Then having more. Letting life revolve around you, propelling you round and round, always in a different direction, any direction. There are…