Small things: a drunken boy’s loose grip, a dropped bottle, a sprained ankle, a torn dress sleeve. But it is often the small fateful twist that alters our lives most profoundly—the beckoning cry of a coal train whistle, a question from a stranger at an intersection, a brown bottle lying in the dirt. Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, the moments of our becoming cannot be carefully plucked like the ripest and most satisfying peach from the bough. In the endless stumble toward ourselves, we harvest the crop we are given.
