We sometimes suffer temporary blindness.
We lose our ways. We sniff out other ways that have gone cold. We pick them up and take them from there. We're up to our ears in all of the ways that we have tried to be, when we're alone, when we're surrounded. They bang around as echoes. They stick to us like sap, even as things get clearer. Arlissa records these words and their looks. She places them flat, pressed between the bulging pages of her notes. There's been water damage here. Legs are tired and hearts are skeptical, but cautiously optimistic.