You suspected a thunderbolt, exposing a grand drama. The truth wasn’t glamourous. Dull, daily life was peppered with subtle thoughts, vague feelings, and easy decisions. A tiny rival of water snaked across flat ground, growing, gaining strength and power until it became a raging river cutting into the landscape and eroding rock-solid canyon walls.

An unbridgeable distance cleaved what once was inseparable. I outgrew my placid past and soon discovered my desire for freedom. There was...