"There is no darkness."

I’m sorry I’ve been gone so much. It’s been a sad, rough patch of late. But I’m writing. I’m reading. I’m getting stories accepted and published. I’m learning you can write through exhaustion and sadness. You can write through discouragement and despair. No matter what else is going on, you can put your head down and make art. There is huge comfort in that.

All I have for you today, is a chunk of incredible prose from the last paragraph of the last story of Kate Braverman’s short story collection, “Squandering the Blue.” This is from her story, “These Clairvoyant Ruins”:

“There is no darkness. It is all inhabited. It is dense with what has been cast off and barely survived, the events that also have half-lives. And the buildings, the inventions, the plazas and kisses. These are the bones of the known and the mysterious, all of the blue things racked by the moon. This is what glistens in the dark, the underbelly where we have lit matches and blown out candles and intoned wishes. It is in these clairvoyant ruins where we live between improvisations, consecrating the moments with our prayers and lies. Always we are abandoning the journey of recognizable destinations, the harbor with the breakwater and buoys. It is in the ruins of this darkness that we absolve the ones who love us badly. In the darkness where we know ourselves absolutely and we are fueled by ancient griefs and luminous without stars.” ~Kate Braverman