Each word is a portable cathedral in which we clarify and sanctify our experience, a reliquary and a laboratory, holding the history of our search for meaning and the pliancy of the possible future, of there being richer and deeper dimensions of experience than those we name in our surface impressions. In the roots of words we find a portal to the... See more

Some moments are simply too vast to be reduced to a single explanation—whether scientific, philosophical, or spiritual. And the meaning of things is often beyond words. It’s enough to sit with the awe, wonder, and mystery of the moment without trying to understand what has transpired. We can embrace the magic that surrounds us every day, appreciate... See more

Yet the fundamental loss remains—it doesn’t just dissipate—and, in a strange way, I think it can become a magnet for other losses. We come to see we are all simply creatures carrying around our ever-deepening loss. Small griefs seem to collect around the bigger primary grief. I think this realization allows us to become a true human being.

the wends (“the frustration that you’re not enjoying an experience as much as you should... as if your heart had been inadvertently demagnetized by a surge of expectations”), anoscetia (“the anxiety of not knowing ‘the real you'”), dès vu (“the awareness that this moment will become a memory”).