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And I do. I do wonder, I think about it all the time. What it would be like to kill myself. Because I never really know, I still can't tell the difference, I'm never quite certain whether or not I'm actually alive. I sit here every single day. Run, I said to myself. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you're a blur that blends into the background. Run, Juliette, run faster, run until your bones break and your shins split and your muscles atrophy and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and it beat too fast for too long and you run. Run run run until you can't hear their feet behind you. Run until they drop their fists and their shouts dissolve in the air. Run with your eyes open and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Juliette. Run until you drop dead. Make sure your heart stops before they ever reach you. Before they ever touch you. Run, I said.

Somewhere, out in the world, are the people who touched us, or loved us, or ran from us. In that way we will live on. If you go to the places we have been, you might meet someone who passed us once in a corridor but forgot us before we were even gone. We are in the back of hundreds of people's photographs - moving, talking, blurring into the background of a picture two strangers have framed on their living room mantelpiece. And in that way, we will live on too. But it isn't enough. It isn't enough to have been a particle in the great extant of existence. I want, we want, more. We want for people to know us, to know our story, to know who we are and who we will be. And after we've gone, to know who we were.

Sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

We are in the back of hundreds of people’s photographs – moving, talking, blurring into the background of a picture two strangers have framed on their living-room mantelpiece.

Death and horror are always near us. The challenge is to get on with our lives and be happy when we can always see them out of the corner of our eye, blurred, but still recognisable in the background.

The more one concentrates on breathing, the more the external stimuli fade into the background... In due course one even grows immune to larger stimuli, and at the same time detachment from them becomes easier and quicker. Care has only to be taken that the body is relaxed whether standing, sitting or lying, and if one then concentrates on breathing one soon feels oneself shut in by impermeable layers of silence. One only knows and feels that one breathes. And, to detach oneself from this feeling and knowing, no fresh decision is required, for the breathing slows down of its own accord, becomes more and more economical in the use of breath, and finally, slipping by degrees into a blurred monotone, escapes one's attention altogether.

Sonder. You are the main character—the protagonist—the star at the center of your own unfolding story. You're surrounded by your supporting cast: friends and family hanging in your immediate orbit. Scattered a little further out, a network of acquaintances who drift in and out of contact over the years. But there in the background, faint and out of focus, are the extras. The random passersby. Each living a life as vivid and complex as your own. They carry on invisibly around you, bearing the accumulated weight of their own ambitions, friends, routines, mistakes, worries, triumphs and inherited craziness. When your life moves on to the next scene, theirs flickers in place, wrapped in a cloud of backstory and inside jokes and characters strung together with countless other stories you'll never be able to see. That you'll never know exists. In which you might appear only once. As an extra sipping coffee in the background. As a blur of traffic passing on the highway. As a lighted window at dusk.

Fulfilled desires, like pleasures (even of the intrinsic kind), are states of achievement rather than default states. For instance, one has to work at satiating oneself, while hunger comes naturally. After one has eaten or taken liquid, bowel and bladder discomfort ensues quite naturally and we have to seek relief. One has to seek out pleasurable sensations, in the absence of which blandness comes naturally. The upshot of this is that we must continually work at keeping suffering (including tedium) at bay, and we can do so only imperfectly. Dissatisfaction does and must pervade life. There are moments, perhaps even periods, of satisfaction, but they occur against a background of dissatisfied striving. Pollyannaism may cause most people to blur out this background, but it remains there.

Time to photoshop my life. Touch up the edges, adjust the tones. Blur out the background, focus on me and crop people out.

Then of course I found it. I’d been flicking through a row of cassette cases, my mind on other things, when suddenly there it was, under my fingers, looking just the way it had all those years ago: Judy, her cigarette, the coquettish look for the barman, the blurred palms in the background.

Creators of literary fairy tales from the 17th-century onward include writers whose works are still widely read today: Charles Perrault (17th-century France), Hans Christian Andersen (19th-century Denmark), George Macdonald and Oscar Wilde (19th-century England). The Brothers Grimm (19th-century Germany) blurred the line between oral and literary tales by presenting their German "household tales" as though they came straight from the mouths of peasants, though in fact they revised these stories to better reflect their own Protestant ethics. It is interesting to note that these canonized writers are all men, since this is a reversal from the oral storytelling tradition, historically dominated by women. Indeed, Straparola, Basile, Perrault, and even the Brothers Grimm made no secret of the fact that their source material came largely or entirely from women storytellers. Yet we are left with the impression that women dropped out of the history of fairy tales once they became a literary form, existing only in the background as an anonymous old peasant called Mother Goose.

Everything, even what was saddest and most shameful in his past life, was overlaid with the deceptive charm of colours. He was horrified to realize how little he had used his eyes - for these colours moved across too vague a background and their outlines were singularly blurred

Somewhere, out in the world, are the people who touched us, or loved us, or ran from us. In that way we will live on. If you go to the places we have been, you might meet someone who passed us once in a corridor but forgot us before we were even gone. We are in the back of hundreds of people’s photographs—moving, talking, blurring into the background of a picture two strangers have framed on their living room mantelpiece. And in that way, we will live on too. But it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to have been a particle in the great extant of existence. I want, we want, more. We want for people to know us, to know our story, to know who we are and who we will be. And after we’ve gone, to know who we were.

For there’s an immense intellectual pleasure involved in making identifications, and each time you learn to recognise a new species of animal or plant, the natural world becomes a more complicated and remarkable place, pulling intricate variety out of a background blur of nameless grey and green.

Precision is easier to master than artful vagueness, especially now when, thanks to Google, novels are fact-heavy. We no longer refer to “flowers” but to particular varieties of roses. The whole valuable distinction between foreground (precise) and background (blurred) has been lost, and now everything is crowding toward the viewer, clamoring for attention.

Only in the shadow of death do we sense the true velocity of time—while adrenaline blasts through our systems, eternity becomes tangible and all else blurs into background.

Run, I said to myself.” Warner has picked up my notebook again. “Please.” I’m begging him. “Please s-stop—” He looks up, looks at me like he can really see me, see into me, like he wants me to see into him and then he drops his eyes, he clears his throat, he starts over, he reads from my journal. “Run, I said to myself. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you’re a blur that blends into the background. “Run, Juliette, run faster, run until your bones break and your shins split and your muscles atrophy and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and it beat too fast for too long and run. “Run run run until you can’t hear their feet behind you. Run until they drop their fists and their shouts dissolve in the air. Run with your eyes open and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Juliette. “Run until you drop dead. “Make sure your heart stops before they ever reach you. Before they ever touch you. “Run, I said.

I didn’t know what it meant to have a nervous breakdown. I’d heard people jokingly exaggerate that they’d had one. Until that moment on my bathroom floor, I had no concept. Then the frayed strands of my sanity that I’d fought so hard to keep together snapped in two, and I started to free fall into chaos. First, I screamed. I screamed and I screamed until I was hoarse. Then my screams turned over to cries of agony. Pain, both physical and emotional, consumed me. Will tried to console me, but it was useless. He panicked and called my parents. When they heard my sobs in the background, they told him to call the paramedics. So he did. By the time they arrived, I was spent of emotions. Instead, I lay motionless on the floor. They were a hazy blur of blue uniforms and soft voices. I could hear them calling my name from far off—like I was under the surface of water. But I couldn’t muster the strength to reply. I heard crying behind me. It must’ve been Will because one of the paramedics said, “Don’t worry, son, we’re gonna take good care of her.” Then I felt myself floating upwards as they put me on a gurney. I rattled and shook as they pulled me out of the house. The flashing lights hurt my eyes. But then a needle pierced my vein, bringing liquid peace to my soul."--Melanie

If you go to the places we have been, you might meet someone who passed us once in a corridor but forgot us before we were even gone. We are in the back of hundreds of people’s photographs – moving, talking, blurring into the background of a picture two strangers have framed on their living-room mantelpiece. And in that way, we will live on, too.

This Is a Photograph of Me It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be a smeared print: blurred lines and grey flecks blended with the paper; then, as you scan it, you see in the left-hand corner a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or spruce) emerging and, to the right, halfway up what ought to be a gentle slope, a small frame house. In the background there is a lake, and beyond that, some low hills. (The photograph was taken the day after I drowned. I am in the lake, in the centre of the picture, just under the surface. It is difficult to say where precisely, or to say how large or small I am: the effect of water on light is a distortion but if you look long enough, eventually you will be able to see me.)

Sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Somewhere, out in the world, are the people who touched us, or loved us, or ran from us. In that way we will live on. If you go to the places we have been, you might meet someone why passed us once in a corridor but forgot us before we were even gone. We are in the back of hundreds of people’s photographs ~ moving, talking, blurring into the background of a picture two strangers have framed on their living-room mantelpiece. And in that way, we will live on, too. But it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to have been a particle in the great extant of existence. I want, we want, more. We want for people to know us, to know our story, to know who we are and who we will be. And after we've gone, to know who we were. So, we will paint a picture for every year we have been alive. One hundred paintings for one hundred years. And even if they all end up in the bin, the cleaner who has to put them there will think, Hey, that’s a lot of paintings. And we will have told our story, scratching out one hundred pictures intended to say: Lenni and Margot were here.

sonder noun. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

As with the other paintings he did in Verrocchio’s shop during the 1470s, Leonardo used thin layers of oil gently blended and blurred, sometimes with his fingers, to create smoky shadows and avoid sharp lines or abrupt transitions. If you stand close enough to the painting at the National Gallery in Washington, DC, you can see his fingerprint just to the right of Ginevra’s jaw, where her ringlets of hair blur into the background juniper tree and a distinct little spiky sprig juts out. Another can be found just behind her right shoulder.67

Somewhere, out in the world, are the people who touched us, or loved us, or ran from us. In that way we will live on. If you go to the places we have been, you might met someone who passed us once in a corridor but forgot us before we were even gone. We are in the back of hundreds of people's photographs--moving, talking, blurring into the background of a picture two strangers have framed on their living room mantelpiece. And in that way, we will live on too. But it isn't enough. It isn't enough to have been a particle in the great extant of existence. I want, we want, more. We want for people to know us, to know our story, to know who we are and who we will be. And after we've gone, to know who we were.

Somewhere, out in the world, are the people who touched us, or loved us, or ran from us. And that way we will live on. If you go to the places we have been, you might meet someone who passed us once in a corridor but forgot us before we were even gone. We are in the back of hundreds of people‘s photographs—moving, talking, blurring into the background of a picture two strangers have framed on their living room mantlepiece. And in that way, we will live on too. But it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to have been a particle in the great extant of existence. I want, we want, more. We want for people to know us, to know our story, to know who we are and who we will be. And after we’ve gone, to know who we were.

Why two (or whole groups) of people can come up with the same story or idea at the same time, even when across the world from each-other: "A field is a region of influence, where a force will influence objects at a distance with nothing in between. We and our universe live in a Quantum sea of light. Scientists have found that the real currency of the universe is an exchange of energy. Life radiates light, even when grown in the dark. Creation takes place amidst a background sea of energy, which metaphysics might call the Force, and scientists call the "Field." (Officially the Zero Point Field) There is no empty space, even the darkest empty space is actually a cauldron of energies. Matter is simply concentrations of this energy (particles are just little knots of energy.) All life is energy (light) interacting. The universe is self-regenreating and eternal, constantly refreshing itself and in touch with every other part of itself instantaneously. Everything in it is giving, exchanging and interacting with energy, coming in and out of existence at every level. The self has a field of influence on the world and visa versa based on this energy. Biology has more and more been determined a quantum process, and consciousness as well, functions at the quantum level (connected to a universe of energy that underlies and connects everything). Scientist Walter Schempp's showed that long and short term memory is stored not in our brain but in this "Field" of energy or light that pervades and creates the universe and world we live in. A number of scientists since him would go on to argue that the brain is simply the retrieval and read-out mechanism of the ultimate storage medium - the Field. Associates from Japan would hypothesize that what we think of as memory is simply a coherent emission of signals from the "Field," and that longer memories are a structured grouping of this wave information. If this were true, it would explain why one tiny association often triggers a riot of sights, sounds and smells. It would also explain why, with long-term memory in particular, recall is instantaneous and doesn't require any scanning mechanism to sift through years and years of memory. If they are correct, our brain is not a storage medium but a receiving mechanism in every sense, and memory is simply a distant cousin of perception. Some scientists went as far as to suggest that all of our higher cognitive processes result from an interaction with the Field. This kind of constant interaction might account for intuition or creativity - and how ideas come to us in bursts of insight, sometimes in fragments but often as a miraculous whole. An intuitive leap might simply be a sudden coalescence of coherence in the Field. The fact that the human body was exchanging information with a mutable field of quantum fluctuation suggested something profound about the world. It hinted at human capabilities for knowledge and communication far deeper and more extended than we presently understand. It also blurred the boundary lines of our individuality - our very sense of separateness. If living things boil down to charged particles interacting with a Field and sending out and receiving quantum information, where did we end and the rest of the world began? Where was consciousness-encased inside our bodies or out there in the Field? Indeed, there was no more 'out there' if we and the rest of the world were so intrinsically interconnected. In ignoring the effect of the "Field" modern physicists set mankind back, by eliminating the possibility of interconnectedness and obscuring a scientific explanation for many kinds of miracles. In re-normalizing their equations (to leave this part out) what they'd been doing was a little like subtracting God.

Bakushan had only been open for a couple of months, but expectations were already sky-high. Still, few people had mentioned the food. Instead, everyone was writing about the up-and-coming chef, Pascal Fox. According to nearly every article, he'd dropped out of college and worked at top French restaurants around the world. Then, at twenty-five and on every "30 under 30" list in existence, he had received an offer to take over L'Escalier, a cathedral-ceilinged white-tablecloth institution in Midtown. But just as New York was ready to inaugurate him into a realm of Immortal Chefs synonymous with a certain level of luxurious precision, Pascal had said he would open a place on his own. He didn't have a location or a concept- or so he'd said in his interviews- just a conviction that he didn't want to fall into the trap of being yet another French chef at another fancy restaurant. So there we were, in front of his brand-new place. It was hard to label it. I had read neo-modernist and Asian-American eclectic. The food was hard to pin down, but the inside was just cool, at least from my sidewalk vantage point. It was 5:45 and already there was a forty-five-minute wait for a spot at one of the communal, no-reservation tables. I looked at the crowd while we waited and saw a couple of girls dressed in tight, short dresses. One of them held a food magazine with Pascal Fox's face on the cover against a blurred kitchen background. I stole a peek at the photo. His eyes were a deep black-brown with a streak of gold. His hair was charmingly messed up, longish bits going every which way, casting shadows on his sculpted cheekbones. That was the other thing. Pascal was exceedingly good-looking. I hadn't paid attention to the hype around his looks, but seeing these girls swoon over his photo made his handsomeness hard to ignore. And... the pictures. I'm only human.

Documentary photography is one of the prominent and influential branches in the art of photography that records social, cultural, and even historical realities. This type of photography allows the photographer to depict real and sometimes untold stories of everyday life and people. In this type of photography, the main goal is to convey the sense of realness and authenticity of the scenes. In this article, we will review important tips and principles for documentary photography with a camera and explain how to record facts in an attractive and effective way. Choosing the right equipment Choosing the right equipment Choosing the right equipment for documentary photography is very important, because you often need to act quickly and accurately. Using DSLR cameras and mirrorless cameras are the best options for this type of photography. Camera feature advantages High flexibility DSLR, excellent image quality, various lenses Mirrorless light and compact, more speed, silence Recommended lenses: 50mm prime lens: for portraits and close-ups. 24mm wide lens: for shooting wide landscapes and scenes. The importance of light in documentary photography Natural light is one of the main factors in documentary photography. You can't always control the lighting conditions, but learning to use ambient light, especially in public or outdoor settings, can help you create better images. Important points in using light: Natural light: during the golden hours (early morning and evening) is the best time to take documentary photos. This light is soft and pleasant. Shadow Light: If the direct sunlight is strong, try shooting in the shadows to avoid harsh shadows on your subjects. Composition techniques in documentary photography Composition is one of the key principles in documentary photography, with the help of which you can tell a telling and interesting story. The rule of thirds is one of the best and most common compositional rules used by documentary photographers. Rule of thirds: Divide the image frame into three horizontal parts and three vertical parts. Place the important subjects of the photo at the intersection points of these lines. Also, pay attention to the depth of the scene and try to use the foreground and background properly to make your image more dynamic. Taking meaningful photos One of the important principles in documentary photography is the meaningfulness of the images. Each photo should tell a story or capture a special moment. In order for your images to be real and emotional, it is better to interact with your subjects and capture them in their natural state. Don't be afraid to record unexpected and normal moments; Because these moments can better reflect the reality of everyday life. Recording feelings and emotions: Documentary photography should be able to show feelings and emotions well. Pay attention to small details in faces, gestures and looks. These details can add depth to your images. Choose the right angle The right angle of view can make a big difference in the impact of your documentary photo. Try different angles to find the best way to tell your story. Low Angle: To show the power or glory of a subject. High Angle: To show the smallness or loneliness of the subject. Normal angle (Eye Level): to create a closer and more realistic connection with the viewer. Camera settings for documentary photography Camera settings for documentary photography Camera settings are very important for documentary photography, as you may be shooting in different light conditions and at high speed. In the following, we mention some key camera settings for documentary photography. shutter speed For documentary photography, where there is a lot of movement in the scene, the shutter speed is very important. If you are shooting moving scenes, the shutter speed should be faster than 1/250 second to avoid blurring. resource : nivamag.ir

It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be a smeared print: blurred lines and grey flecks blended with the paper; then, as you scan it, you see in the left-hand corner a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or spruce) emerging and, to the right, halfway up what ought to be a gentle slope, a small frame house. In the background there is a lake, and beyond that, some low hills. (The photograph was taken the day after I drowned. I am in the lake, in the center of the picture, just under the surface. It is difficult to say where precisely, or to say how large or small I am: the effect of water on light is a distortion but if you look long enough, eventually you will be able to see me.)

The rather blurred background to the face that formed over the vid plate seemed faintly familiar—ah yes, the Security Ops room at Ryoval Biologicals. Baron Ryoval had arrived personally on that scene as promised. It took only one glance at the dusky, contorted expression on Ryoval's youthful face to fill in the rest of the scenario. Miles folded his hands and smiled innocently. "Good morning, Baron. What can I do for you?" "Die, you little mutant!" Ryoval spat. "You! There isn't going to be a bunker deep enough for you to burrow in. I'll put a price on your head that will have every bounty hunter in the galaxy all over you like a second skin—you'll not eat or sleep—I'll have you—" Yes,

May 5: At 5:00 a.m., Marilyn awakes with chills and sheets drenched in perspiration. Her fever is again 101 degrees, and her vision is blurred. Marilyn hires a bicycle at the cost of eighteen dollars a month, a rental from the Hans Ohrt Lightweight Bicycles store in Beverly Hills. But Marilyn never acts on her plans to ride this English-style bicycle to the studio. Marilyn purchases Rodin’s The Embrace, and Poucette’s oil painting The Bull, from Edgardo Acosta, Modern Paintings, 441 North Bedford Drive, Beverly Hills, California. Norman Rosten, who was with her, remembered her comment on The Embrace: “He’s hurting her but he wants to love her, too.” The bull appears against a fierce red background and seems reflective of Monroe’s rage over “romance gone awry,” as Lois Banner puts it in MM—Personal.

My father's brand of loud, violent chaos was replaced by something quiter and more insidious; a mother who meant well, who tried to give me everything, but failed to see that everything was too much. Boundaries fell away, the lines between parent and child blurred, and along with all her love and care and sacrifice I also got her fear and dread and a false belief that I was somehow responsible for fixing it all. And so what should have been a temporary measure to cope in a crisis became my way of dealing with everyday life - stay on high alert, push your feelings down and always have a plan. To this day, I have a faulty security system running constantly in the background, sounding the alarm and sending me into fight or flight over every perceived threat. I live life with a proverbial tiger in the room, but I can somehow withstands its presence as long as everything else is in order.

It started with loneliness,” she says. “I could eat and not taste a thing, cry and not feel sad, sleep and still feel tired. I didn’t like what I used to like or want what I used to want. I thinned until I felt like a blur. A little piece of the background no one would notice had gone missing. And even if I’d never felt emptier, every time I tried to get out of bed, I felt like I was sinking. I’d stare at my clock and watch it tick, wishing I could break it.

Every photograph has the capacity to be a creative canvas, and with the correct tools, commonplace events may become engrossing visual tales. Here's PicVik, an AI photo editor, collage creator, and background remover tool that blurs the lines between creativity and innovation. PicVik is more than simply an app; it's a doorway to a world where your artistic ambitions and the power of artificial intelligence collide. With PicVik, you can easily remove backgrounds from photos, create complex collages, and enhance the details in your images. PicVik is meant to be your go-to tool for digital art.

Run, I said to myself. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you’re a blur that blends into the background. Run, Juliette, run faster, run until your bones break and your shins split and your muscles atrophy and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and it beat too fast for too long and run. Run run run until you can’t hear their feet behind you. Run until they drop their fists and their shouts dissolve in the air. Run with your eyes open and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Juliette. Run until you drop dead. Make sure your heart stops before they ever reach you. Before they ever touch you. Run, I said.

Maybe Sloan would agree to a deal. I’d talk to someone about some of my issues if she would agree to go to grief counseling. It wasn’t me giving in to Josh like she wanted, but Sloan knew how much I hated therapists, and she’d always wanted me to see someone. I was debating how to pitch this to her when I glanced into the living room and saw it—a single purple carnation on my coffee table. I looked around the kitchen like I might suddenly find someone in my house. But Stuntman was calm, plopped under my chair. I went in to investigate and saw that the flower sat on top of a binder with the words “just say okay” written on the outside in Josh’s writing. He’d been here? My heart began to pound. I looked again around the living room like I might see him, but it was just the binder. I sat on the sofa, my hands on my knees, staring at the binder for what felt like ages before I drew the courage to pull the book into my lap. I tucked my hair behind my ear and licked my lips, took a breath, and opened it up. The front page read “SoCal Fertility Specialists.” My breath stilled in my lungs. What? He’d had a consultation with Dr. Mason Montgomery from SoCal Fertility. A certified subspecialist in reproductive endocrinology and infertility with the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He’d talked to them about in vitro and surrogacy, and he’d had fertility testing done. I put a shaky hand to my mouth, and tears began to blur my eyes. I pored over his test results. Josh was a breeding machine. Strong swimmers and an impressive sperm count. He’d circled this and put a winking smiley face next to it and I snorted. He’d outlined the clinic’s high success rates—higher than the national average—and he had gotten signed personal testimonials from previous patients, women like me who used a surrogate. Letter after letter of encouragement, addressed to me. The next page was a complete breakdown on the cost of in vitro and information on Josh’s health insurance and what it covered. His insurance was good. It covered the first round of IVF at 100 percent. He even had a small business plan. He proposed selling doghouses that he would build. The extra income would raise enough money for the second round of in vitro in about three months. The next section was filled with printouts from the Department of International Adoptions. Notes scrawled in Josh’s handwriting said Brazil just opened up. He broke down the process, timeline, and costs right down to travel expenses and court fees. I flipped past a sleeve full of brochures to a page on getting licensed for foster care. He’d already gone through the background check, and he enclosed a form for me, along with a series of available dates for foster care orientation classes and in-home inspections. Was this what he’d been doing? This must have taken him weeks. My chin quivered. Somehow, seeing it all down on paper, knowing we’d be in it together, it didn’t feel so hopeless. It felt like something that we could do. Something that might actually work. Something possible. The last page had an envelope taped to it. I pried it open with trembling hands, my throat getting tight. I know what the journey will look like, Kristen. I’m ready to take this on. I love you and I can’t wait to tell you the best part…Just say okay. I dropped the letter and put my face into my hands and sobbed like I’d never sobbed in my life. He’d done all this for me. Josh looked infertility dead in the eye, and his choice was still me. He never gave up. All this time, no matter how hard I rejected him or how difficult I made it, he never walked away from me. He just changed strategies. And I knew if this one didn’t work he’d try another. And another. And another. He’d never stop trying until I gave in. And Sloan—she knew. She knew this was here, waiting for me. That’s why she’d made me leave. They’d conspired to do this.

It was a female grizz and she was coming full speed right at us. She was a big blur, but in the background I could see two little cubs. They were darting back and forth, confused and terrified. They were trying to figure out what the heck mom was doing.

Cat watched Travis with open appreciation, planning how to take a picture that would capture both his animal grace and his intense intelligence. Sidelight, surely. Or perhaps illumination from below as she panned her camera with his movements, freezing him against a blurred background. “Wake up,” he said, opening the passenger door and piling stuff in the backseat. “Or do you want me to drive?” “I’m awake,” she said vaguely, balancing angles and lighting in her mind. “Convince me.” “I was wondering whether to shoot you in sidelight or up from below, to freeze you against a blurred background or to do a close-up.” “What did you decide?” Travis asked as he slid into the passenger seat. A slow smile curved Cat’s lips. “To shoot you and then have you stuffed.” He snickered. “Sounds painful.” “Nope. I know a great taxidermist.

Is the movie of your LIFE how you intended it to be? Do you feel you’re the star of your own movie, or is someone else – a celebrity, royalty, a privileged toff, a super rich person – always in the main shot? Are you an out-of-focus blur in the background? How close does your movie stick to the original script you intended for your life? If it’s nowhere near, isn’t it time to change the script or change your life? Become the star of your own movie, transform it into colour rather than the dull black and white it is now. Ask yourself – if the movie of your life was in a cinema, would you watch it? Would you want other people to see it? Would they walk out because it’s so boring? Even worse, would you walk out too and demand a refund?

And then you arrive on the scene, Baby Willis. A little tiny Kung Fu Boy. And for a moment the backstories and fragments and scenes filled with background players and nonspeaking parts, it all makes a kind of sense, all of it leading to this. A family. They bring you home from the hospital, at which point everything speeds up. It’s a montage of first moments, all of the major and minor milestones: first step, first word, first time sleeping through the night. There are a few years in a family when, if everything goes right, the parents aren’t alone anymore, they’ve been raising their own companion, the kid who’s going to make them less alone in the world and for those years they are less alone. It’s a blur—dense, raucous, exhausting—feelings and thoughts all jumbled together into days and semesters, routines and first times, rolling along, rambling along, summer nights with all the windows open, lying on top of the covers, and darkening autumn mornings when no one wants to get out of bed, getting ready, getting better at things, wins and losses and days when it doesn’t go anyone’s way at all, and then, just as chaos begins to take some kind of shape, present itself not as a random series of emergencies and things you could have done better, the calendar, the months and years and year after year, stacked up in a messy pile starts to make sense, the sweetness of it all, right at that moment, the first times start turning into last times, as in, last first day of school, last time he crawls into bed with us, last time you’ll all sleep together like this, the three of you. There are a few years when you make almost all of your important memories. And then you spend the next few decades reliving them.