Boerne, August 9

I came back inside to a shriveling marmalade scorpion in the bedroom, tangled in hair and dust. He was dead until I touched him, and then he died under a shard of carved flint.

Imitation is a form of flattery. If you will make this your life, you may have a master for your advocate. If I’m not painting, I feel less alive.

I can’t leave you tied to the chair without coming and speaking and stroking your knee. But I can’t take you with me. I need to puncture my soul and draw out cords to air out in this room, to hang from kitchen cabinet doors and drape over high-backed chairs. I don’t know what all, yet: I will not know until it is finished. And I cannot carry you as I do it. And I cannot carry you as I do, and live. But in leaving you I feel ashamed to worship. Which way is slavery? Which way is beauty?

Love hits you harder when you run toward it.