"Preface: Deciding to Live"

19 May 2020: "I did things I did not understand for reasons I could not being to explain just to be in motion, to be trying to do something, change something in a world I wanted desperately to make over but could not imagine for myself...That was all part of deciding to live, though I didn't know it." --Dorothy Allison, "Preface: Deciding to Live," the opening piece in Trash

Started reading Trash today. I have only read parts of it before, so I am looking forward to moving through the whole thing. Allison's words above--about how writing was part of her decision to live--is useful for me as I wade through her often painful work (that is, work filled with pain). Writing is a kind of push against the darkness, a reminder that telling painful stories can be a way to celebrate (perhaps quietly) enduring and surviving.