Sublime

anarchist feminist Zen Buddhist novelist nun.

filled with the kind of determined cheer that masked a deeper despair.

Then she stood and lifted the stool carefully off Benny, who continued to sit there, looking somewhat wobbly and exposed, like Jell-O taken too soon from the mold.

my purpose for writing it before I die is to tell someone the fascinating life story of my hundred-and-four-year-old great-grandmother, who is a Zen Buddhist nun.

At one point in my life, I learned how to think. I used to know how to feel. In war, these are lessons best forgotten.

The dream took place on a mountainside, somewhere in Japan, where the shrill cries of insects broke the silence, and the nighttime breezes in the tall cypress trees were fresh and restless.

Without the light from the moon, the night was so dark he could barely make out the trees until he was almost bumping into them.