Vinyl terrazzo, a tear at the seam. In my thirties, I saw a therapist who encouraged me to apply to grad school. I fired the therapist on the heels of a dozen rejection letters. They were very sorry, I was quite angry. I was high on magical thinking, that if I sought metaphors, signs in the ordinary, I’d be rewarded with credentials. A kind of prosperity gospel for creatives. I believed it was terrazzo. You just had to squint your eyes to blur the seems.

I read Jung when I was in high school, barely made any sense out of it, but loved it all the same. A hero’s journey of the mind, a fantasy novel, a drug-free trip. I know why people collect tchotchkes, secular totems, reminders to dream. If dreams don’t become responsibility, they turn into compulsion.

Just saying it could even make it happen.