There are some things you can’t write through—this came as an absolute surprise to me at thirty seven years of age and to tell the truth, I am not quite sure I believe it, mainly because I don’t think I have developed many other skills and when I can’t write it out I am stuck.

Once when I lived in Haiti, we were climbing this steep hill in truck. In Haiti people are transported in the back like cattle, there is a bar across the top where you stand, hold onto the pipe, like you are on a subway train. You are packed so close that it feels as if you are in the body next to you, each breath is matched. On this night I stuck two children into the back, so they did not have to walk alone in the dark. I was told not to do this. I did anyway.

We were ¾ of the way up mountain, the gear slipped. It was an amazing feeling flying backwards in the middle of the night, of watching the children fly out from under my skirts like bats, their dark feet hitting the ground, their bodies rolling with the impact and the two gears finding each other, pulling, pushing and finding the one place, the one place where everyone was safe.

I have almost died twice. The second time the car hit the wall and the semi grazed off my right side and kept moving. Both times I have said Jesus, nothing else. I was young. I believed in everything. Now that I am old I don’t know what I would say. I don’t know what I believe in. Both times I have said your name, even though I did not know you then. Funny how when you get older, belief is the thing you keep hidden.