The Inexplicable Logic of My Life

When is the right time for anything? Who knows? Living is an art, not a science.

Words exist only in theory. And then one ordinary day you run into a word that exists only in theory. And you meet it face to face. And then that word becomes someone you know. That word becomes someone you hate. And you take that word with you wherever you go. And you can't pretend it isn't there.

Don't ever underestimate the people who love you.

The thing about tears is that they can be as quiet as a cloud floating across the desert sky.

That’s the way it was when you loved someone. You took them everywhere you went—​whether they were alive or not.

I told you that there were only two things you needed to learn in life. You needed to learn how to forgive. And you needed to learn how to be happy.

I want to live in the calmness of the morning light.

Life can be hard. I know how hard it can be.” And then she said, “Déjate querer.” Let yourself be loved.

Life had its seasons, and the season of letting go would always come, but there was something very beautiful in that, in the letting go. Leaves were always graceful as they floated away from the tree.

The world did have too many words. The sound of the rain was all we needed.

I’ll always remember that look on your face. You saw me. You’ve always seen me. And I think that’s all that anyone wants. That’s why Fito loves coming over here. He’s been invisible all his life. And all of a sudden he’s visible. Seeing someone. Really seeing someone. That’s love.

It wasn’t always going to be morning, and darkness would come around again. The sun would rise, and then the sun would set. And there you were in the darkness again. If you didn’t whistle, the quiet and the dark would swallow you up. The thing is, I didn’t know how to whistle. I guessed I was going to have to learn.

I keep that memory somewhere inside me—​where it’s safe. I take it out and look at it when I need to. As if it were a photograph.

Grief was a terrible and beautiful thing.

I think there are a lot of things that find a hiding place in our bodies.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to rank the people in your life. That's not how the heart worked. The heart didn't make lists.

If there’s no heaven, I don’t really care. Maybe people are heaven, Dad. Some people, anyway. You and Sam and Fito. Maybe you’re all heaven. Maybe everyone’s heaven, and we just don’t know it.

That’s how she loved people—​by feeding them.

We'd been so sure of ourselves, but now we were lost.

Why does it hurt when you love someone? What is it with the human heart? What was it with my heart? I wondered if there was a way to keep her in this world forever.

There are more songs living inside her than there are leaves on her tree.

Something happened inside me. A huge and uncontrollable wave ran through me and crashed on the shore that was my heart.

In the distance, I can see a storm coming in, the dark clouds and the lightning on the horizon moving towards me. I wait and I wait and I wait for the storm. And then it comes, and the rains wash away the nightmares and the memories. And I'm not afraid.

Before I nodded off, I thought about what my dad had said—​that life wasn’t all nice and neat like a book, and life didn’t have a plot filled with characters who said intelligent and beautiful things. But he wasn’t right about that. See, my dad said intelligent and beautiful things. And he was real. He was the most real thing in the entire world. So why couldn’t I be like him?

Yeah,” I said. Sometimes I was full of halfhearted yeahs.

I take the sealed envelope from him—​the one that holds the information about my biological father. I ask him for his cigarette lighter. He hands it to me. I look at Sam and Fito and say, “Word for the day.” Sam understands and says, “Nurture.” I take the unopened envelope. I am watching myself as I take the lighter and place it over the edge of the paper. I am watching the envelope burn. I am watching the ashes floating up to the heavens. I am hearing myself as I tell my father, “I know who my father is. I have always known.” And now I am laughing. And my dad is laughing. And Fito is smiling that incredible smile of his. We are watching Sam dance around the yard as Maggie follows her and jumps up and barks. Sam is shouting out to me and the morning sky, “Your name is Salvador! Your name is Salvador! Your name is Salvador!

And like everybody else in the known universe, she didn’t always let herself in on the truth.

His smile was breaking my heart.

The world had changed. And this new world was quiet and sad.

But my father, the man who was in my room and had turned on the light, he’d raised me. He’d tamed me with all the love that lived inside him.