Devotion

by Patti Smith

The right book can serve as a docent of sorts, setting a tone or even altering the course of a journey.

Fate has a hand but is not the hand. I was looking for something and found something else, the trailer of a film.

Twirling about giddily, she experienced the melancholy luxury of solitary joy.

That is the decisive power of a singular work: a call to action. And I, time and again, am overcome with the hubris to believe I can answer that call.

I rose from the table, the unfinished violet tea gone cold, the immortelle left behind.