People were just like that. We couldn't even see each other, just the shadows moving, pushed by unseen winds. — Janet Fitch

I had already seen more of the world, its beauty and misery and sheer surprise, than they could hope or fear to perceive.

This was an artist's stare, attentive to detail, taking in the truth without preconceptions. It was a stare that didn't turn away when I stared back, but was startled to find itself returned.

Without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my past was my life. It wasn't like I didn't know where all this remembering got you, all that hunger for beauty and astonishing cruelty and ever-present-loss.