At fifteen, when Mika got off the plane alone and handed me a stale box of paint, I knew something had happened. The world became wet, vivid and blurred as though I had lost my footing and, sliding, was jettied into a rapid current, whirling round and round like a leaf, passing a forest, lakes, houses, flushing out into the sea, beyond the sea into vast series of islands, an archipelago of objects, misplaced, colors I had thought I would never feel again. At moments we would stop to look at each other and then burst into another volley of questions and coincidence. We could not dam it up; it was such a relief that we somehow managed to survive long enough to come to meet, to be here and talk. It was if my soul had flown back to me; I had only to breathe it in.
And my life began again.

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