every morning i wake up & get my coffee & i recite in my head this excerpt from ‘invitation,’ by mary oliver:  “it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.” & i just say it over & over again until it sticks to my mind for the rest of the day. it is a serious thing. i am alive. i am so lucky. this fresh morning i get the chance to live again & again & again

“Memory blurs, that’s the point. If memory didn’t blur you wouldn’t have the fool’s courage to do things again, again, again that tear you apart.”

— We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates