I've noticed, lately, how my eyes open when I first wake up in the morning: light hits them like a gunshot, for a moment I'm unable to breathe. I'm stunned into submission by the mere fact of my life, the mere fact that I continue to live. And afterward, when I step outside to get the paper, I'm floored by the first rush of humid air into my lungs. This is what it is to be alive. Everything is a miracle. The stars have been counted, have fallen into their correct order. At night I stand outside staring at the sky, distant planets and suns, awed by the vast expanse of the universe in which I am the source of no gravitational pull, no light, in which I am of no importance except for the truth of my name.