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The Portal

The second portal to Mere had been two feet high and three feet across. Amber knew this because later she returned to that exact spot beside the woods and measured where the portal had been using her wooden school ruler. She did not know the size of the first portal because she had been much younger then — just six; she was seventeen now — and so she had overlooked many important details.

No Longer On The Map

I had once believed in answers, saviors, miracles, and sages; divine justice and ideal love; the discovery of a lost Taoist parable or a missing biblical passage; a scientific intervention or progressive sociopolitical system that would liberate the oppressed; perhaps even news from NASA about habitable planets accepting applications for novelists. But I knew now that none of this would happen. The letter from a publisher, the spiritual breakthrough, the scientific solution, the literary prize, the big-hearted city, the understanding woman — they were all a mirage.

No Talking To Imaginary People

To give me a better shot at catching a long-distance ride, my father dropped me off at the Pine Valley entrance to Interstate 8, about forty miles east of San Diego. He waited till I’d arranged my equipment along the roadside, then took out his camera.

Sunbeams

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.

Maya Angelou

Small Happiness

We all search for happiness, but we rarely succeed in locating it. It’s much better to sit completely still and let happiness search for you.

Leaving Home

Crossing the border, avoiding the draft, living on the streets

The First Encounter

“It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer