“The world is violent and mercurial…it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love…love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.” — Tennessee Williams

I’ve tried running from the fire before.

I used motion, endurance, distance—anything that resembled progress—to escape the heat. For a while, it worked. Or maybe it just kept me busy long enough to catch my breath. But grief, pain, and confusion don’t disappear when you outrun them. They wait. And when they return, they don’t knock.

So I’m not running away.

I choose what matters. I choose to stay. I choose the work—especially when it’s uncomfortable, when it hurts, when certainty isn’t on offer. If the building is burning—and it always is—then the only direction that makes sense is toward what’s worth saving.

And here’s the turn I didn’t expect: grief, pain, and confusion aren’t insurmountable. Over time, they become familiar. Almost instructive. They remind us of the most precious gift of all—that we are alive, that we have loved, that something mattered enough to leave a mark.

I won’t run from love.

I will run to you.