Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered? It’s like that Zen koan, the one about the tree falling in the woods. If no one heard it, did it happen? If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?

A palimpsest in reverse.

“Small places make for small lives. And some people are fine with that. They like knowing where to put their feet. But if you only walk in other people’s steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark.”

That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.

so aggressively pleasant, so mercifully free of snide remarks, petty squabbles, passive disapproval,

Teaching is an extension of learning, a way to be a perpetual student.

If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?

Easy to stay on the path when the road is straight and the steps are numbered.

head had begun to ache from staring at the