as they believed storytelling had magical power.

I had no idea I was such a convincing actress, and no idea that “fine” was not a little white lie, but a brick wall I’d placed between me and the people who loved me. Because I wanted to be fine. Because I was too afraid to look at my own pain and need, let alone share it with another person. Because I was afraid that if someone saw the truth, it

our imaginations allow us to experience the things we hear and see as if they were our own, which leads to powerful connections.

Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, and Isabelle Eberhardt,

And that’s the point. To return to Didion: “Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.”

Starting tomorrow, do one creative act that you can repeat for 100 days.

But before I get to that phrase, that high board, first I must navigate a fallow period—either blessedly brief or mercilessly long—in which I get in my own way. Eleven books into my writing life, and I still haven’t managed to avoid it, which leaves me with the reluctant belief that it must be fertile in its own fallow way.

I don’t believe going through something hard makes us wiser or stronger or braver by default. But the transitional moments in our lives offer the possibility for a new beginning.

“Make your resistance the thing. See how that works.”