“Time, in our experience, is linear, but in truth time is also looped. It is like a piece of yarn, in which each section of the strand twists and winds around every other - a complicated and complex knot, in which one part cannot be viewed out of context from the others. Everything touches everything else. Everything affects everything else. Each loop, each bend, each twist interact with each other. It is all connected, and it is all one.

But every once in a while, there are experiences that slice all the other moments apart - stark, singular things that mark the difference between Before and After. These moments are singular, separate from the knot. Separate even from the thread. They can't be tugged at or loosened. They cannot be wound into something lovely or intricate or delicate. They do not interact seamlessly with the fabric of a life. .They are of another substance entirely. Unstuck in time, and out of sync with a life's patterns and processes.”