A close friend came to town, walked into my small, dim apartment, and said, “Ok, I know you — how will we bring in opulence and light, how will we increase expansiveness and hospitality?” (One of those surprise lines that friends sometimes pull out, just to reveal how well they see us…)

A ceramicist friend made me a kitchen set of mugs and bowls on her basement wheel; an entrepreneurial friend sent me handwoven silk carpets for my floors, with process videos of his mentor weaving them the same way he’d learned as a child; a tailor friend is, right this moment, handcrafting a quilt for my bedroom, covering it with talismens that represent me / my past lives (and asking other friends to weigh in…)