“The root of the word ‘rationality’ is the Latin ratio, meaning ‘reckoning, calculation, reason.’ Reckoning feels most apt, with its ancient meaning of the settlement of a bill or account. This is what my fear was asking of me, a true accounting of my situation, in all of its improbability and truth.”

“IN DUTCH STILL-LIFE paintings, among the blocks of gouda, flayed artichokes, and glowing cherries, there is sometimes a fly. As symbol, it reminds us of decay. Even in the stillness of the painting, this can’t sit here all day.

A fly was buzzing about my days, hovering and alighting. At the stoplight, at the gas station, ahead of me on the sidewalk. Death, death, death.”

“Once stuck in my body, I remembered how fluid it all was once, forgetting myself, then slipping back in. I used to think it was a bad thing, that my mind and body were somehow disintegrated, that I should do more yoga. But now I think it was beautiful, like a tide going out and returning. I would always come back, and there my body would be, waiting for me like a docked boat.”