I Had Grown Up As A Fan

God: I Own You Like I Own The Caves. The Ocean: Not A Chance. No Comparison. God: I Made You. I Could Tame You. The Ocean: At One Time, Maybe. But Not Now. God: I Will Come To You, Freeze You, Break You. The Ocean: I Will Spread Myself Like Wings. I Am A Billion Tiny Feathers. You Have No Idea What's Happened To Me.

Maybe He Hadn't Thought The War Through. It Had Seemed Like Simple Fun When He Had First Pictured It, With A Glorious Beginning, A Difficult But Valor-filled Middle, And A Victorious End. He Hadn't Accounted For The Fact That There Might Not Be Much Of A Resolution To The Battle, And He Hadn't Imagined What It Would Feel Like When The War Just Sort Of Ended, Without Anyone Admitting Defeat And Congratulating Him For His Bravery.

Suffering Is Only Suffering If It’s Done In Silence, In Solitude. Pain Experienced In Public, In View Of Loving Millions, Was No Longer Pain. It Was Communion.

You Invite Things To Happen. You Open The Door. You Inhale. And If You Inhale The Chaos, You Give The Chaos, The Chaos Gives Back.

We've Become A Nation Of Indoor Cats, He'd Said. A Nation Of Doubters, Worriers, Overthinkers. Thank God These Weren't The Kind Of Americans Who Settled This Country. They Were A Different Breed! They Crossed The Country In Wagons With Wooden Wheels! People Croaked Along The Way, And They Barely Stopped. Back Then, You Buried Your Dead And Kept Moving.