Orion Magazine | Nature, Culture & Place

In the Russian nesting doll of personhood, the child is always there, deep inside the incremental persons who grew out of her, informing and influencing them, but not identical to them. The key, I think, is to hold all the selves we used to be with tenderness, but to also let them go with courage.

Are you optimistic about the future?

I am optimistic about my willingness to show up for it with the best I’ve got.

Do you have a writing routine?

I meditate first thing in the morning, then work out. I do much of my reading at the gym – something about the kinetic energy being discharged leaves my mind more single of focus. And then I write, standing, for as long as the writing feels alive. By mid-afternoon, my mind begins to slip out of the poetic dimension, o... See more