These two little stories mean a lot to me in different ways. The first is an open wound, the second is liberation though these two have nothing to do with each other aside from being kindly picked up by a publisher with heart.

I don’t talk about it much now but some of you here know I was a journalist for a long time. One of the most shattering things in that world is not just running toward tragedy to cover it but also how repetitive those tragedies are. Every time the alarm goes and you race to work your throat is stuffed with the words How and Again. How is this happening? How again when we know the way it ends. We know the agony. How? How again?

Recording history is important and valuable but the constraints of that duty alone wear on a certain kinds of journalist and all society. It has its limits. That’s where art comes in and where you come in.Doing what we can in this moment can mean doing the one or two things we’re best at in a way that helps people see and feel and connect. Reading this is a connection. Thank you for that.

Witnessing descent into suffering is one thing, seeing the joy of those unleashing it, wittingly or unwittingly, is another level of dystopia. I originally called this first story Lamentation because that’s how it felt to me. But I couldn’t get the question out of my mind. How do they sing?

The second story is smaller in scale and scope, a single little life, not very different from others. The normality of a school dance, a bonfire night, marriage. Unmarriage. But at the heart of it is the cleansing of liberation. What do you need to be free of? Do you have a match, are you deciding what to do with it?