Small talk has its place, of course. The checkout person does not get paid enough to hear the truth, and there are people in our lives with whom it’s not safe for us to share our tenderest truths. But among the people who matter most to us, why do we relegate such a fruitful question—How are you?—to shallow small talk? And what would happen if we

In the case of my memoir, Stray, I would take an index card, and on the front, I’d write a place—“Laurel Canyon,” for example. Then, on the back, I’d write any details that came to mind: landslides, traffic, Lily’s coffee cart, squirrels stealing pomelos, care and threat, Fleetwood Mac, loneliness, losing the daylight. Another was “Owens

We don’t walk around like reporters, recorder in hand, taking careful notes and identifying sources. Instead, our imaginations allow us to experience the things we hear and see as if they were our own, which leads to powerful connections.

THIS IS YOUR PROMPT: Write about a teacher, cataloging what you remember (good, bad, and otherwise) and how you saw them as a child. Then write about them as the student of life you are today.

My modus operandi became this: to trust and find ways to delight in the mystery of how things unfold, even if it’s not what you had planned, even if it’s far from ideal, and to believe that facing the thing you fear brings you exactly what you need. In my journal I wrote: It is possible to alter the course of my becoming.

A day spent writing is de facto better than a day spent avoiding writing.

I don’t know much about it, but I know it will come with a bang. I know it will hurt like hell even though I have braced myself for years. Some days it feels like I sit and wait for it, daydreaming about what it will feel like. It can show up like a slow-motion video of a head-on collision; as a family comes into focus I realize it is ours. Other

“To remember somebody means to put them back together and to hold them within ourselves. As everybody knows—or will come to know—people who you can’t live without die, and you keep living. But once they’re dead, they can be with us all the time.”

Set your timer for five minutes and do nothing. Stare at the desk or the wall or the dust motes in a slice of sunlight. Then write about the thoughts, the questions, and the answers that came up in that moment of slowness, of stillness.