Dear Wigleaf,

Some days I worry about sentience.

Last week, in my office, I set out to organize a stack of handouts for a class I was going to teach. Each time I took a paperclip from the box to secure a sheath of pages, I wondered if the other clips in the box felt anything about their missing brethren. Or was it something special to be chosen, to enter another world? To have purpose?

Sometimes I return the clips back to the box, but not always. Sometimes they get lost or bent or disappear into places I cannot fathom.

That day, as I selected the next clip from the tangled, clinging mass of their skinny, silver bodies, I felt their longing and their loss.

I don't believe it, of course, but then also, I do. What do I really mean, I wonder? What misplaced feeling from the universe, what human or animal need is passing via osmosis to the objects in my world? Because I feel it some days, I really do. All that wonder and lack of control.

I often say to my students, it's hard to be a human being. But maybe, the truth is, it's hard and wonderful to be anything at all.

Love,
Rebecca