The experiences associated with death were seen as visits to important dimensions of reality that deserved to be experienced, studied, and carefully mapped. ↗
When I first encountered the name of the city of Stockholm, I little thought that I would ever visit it, never mind end up being welcomed to it as a guest of the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Foundation. ↗
Although I wasn't able to get a visa for Vietnam, I was able to talk with swift boat veterans to get a feel for the time and place, and I visited a tropical prison in the Philippines to get a sense of what a Vietnamese prison might have been like. ↗
But the truth is I wanted to have my daughter for so long. It's not the kind of thing you can visit, motherhood. Especially in the early years. Now she's eight, and I'm still not going to go anywhere. ↗
I've worked for a long time, but I got to the point where I felt like, I am out here so far, how do I get back? I want to have a real life, a personal life. I didn't want a personal life I just visited. ↗