— bluebird (pg. 190), Ariel Gore

“Happiness is a kind of openness, we have learned. So choose the risky road of power and vulnerability. Be done with dull things. Take your life back. Free yourself from habits of anger and compliance—smoking self-destruction. Eyes wide open to the world as it is, we grieve. And in the midst of it all, we rejoice…We have been told that liberty and happiness are mutually exclusive. This notion we reject. We can write our own scripts, write our own stories. We can follow the threads of joy, too, like sparks flying from the campfire, see where they land. We can create a liberation psychology. So we open to love or work or art that feels expansive. There is no “happily ever after.” There is only meditation, action, change, friendship, idea, inspiration, creation. We spin this light out of darkness.”