I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home

There are times we just send out messages into the world and hope they are received with the intention they were sent, but we can’t always count on the attitude or the generosity of the recipient. There is a certain benefit of the doubt we must give to messages transmitted electronically. We cannot read the sender’s expression, we cannot hear their

And how do you explain that nearly no one is good enough, it has to do with how much work you put in, your diligence, your persistence, some fortune, some luck. And I suppose it has to be with your willingness to imagine things that aren’t there. They didn’t need me to give them permission to live their dreams. No one had ever given me permission t

But what if we let time pass, looking at an incident in the rearview mirror rather than at the moment of impact? We can wave goodbye to it, but still see it so clearly, captured in a pristine reflection. And what do we gain? Perspective, wisdom, and perhaps not acceptance—some things do not deserve to be accepted, after all—but at least a sense of

thought about the way women are told we’re crazy when we are just trying to claim our space in the world. The way we’re treated, have been treated, for eternity; how when a woman cries foul men invent ways to shut her up immediately. I thought about women who were burned at the stake, and what it means to be believed, and what it means to speak cal

Having any success as an author is like getting a promotion, only they don’t hire anyone to replace you at your own job. I had to be a good writer and I had to be a good salesperson.

An attraction to that which was absent. A sketch, an outline, never fully formed, but still, it existed as an idea. Filling in the imaginary blanks with information I did not have but found I could invent quite easily. A thing we do as writers. If we just give ourselves permission. But also, there was something about simply feeling the sense of the

just wanted to be in a better place than I was when I wasn’t writing.

Solitude is better as a block of time than as an entire existence.

ha. I make a deal with myself that the first thing I will do upon entering every hotel room is unpack my dresses. I invent a ritual for safety. If I do these things, if I hang these clothes, if I keep them clean and neat, if I tend to them, then it will be the same as tending to myself. I mistake control of my outward appearance as architecture for

I love the idea of solitude being a gift. I think we can be afraid of being lonely, but if you figure out a way to own it and see it as a treasure and a pleasure and a joy, then it can be quite comforting. I have a place to go in my head that’s just my place, and no one ever gets to that place. I value that alone time so much. I wouldn’t be able to