We spend our lives searching for portals to the possible. They are rarely gates swung open for us by some great hand. Often, they are where we least expect them — in the chance encounter, in the small unconscious choice, at an inconvenient moment, in a quiet corner of the quotidian. Oftener still, they are the cracks where we have broken — broken the story, broken the ego, broken the pattern. If we are attentive enough and present enough, the shy light of curiosity is enough to begin widening these openings enough to glimpse the other side, to believe there is an other side. Courage is a species of curiosity, bravery a species of belief. The hand through the crevice. The foot across the threshold. And suddenly, where there was nothing, there is something — that first opening into the possibility of everything.That, at least, is what I think of as I read this splendid poem by Hannah Fries:WHEREVER YOU THINK THERE IS NOTHINGby Hannah FriesIn the hollowed-out heartwood of an old tree.In a jagged eggshell’s translucent blue.Between bars,between bombs,between blows.In the blossom’s chamber where the squash bee sleeps.In the spiral cupped by the calcium shell.Between sirens,between slaughters,between famine’s last grains.In the great choral breath before Händel’s amen.In the time-machine swirl of stone.Beyond our blindness, the fabricthat holds sun andsun and sun.The pupil’s black hole.Garden scent of the fresh-dug grave.The hand’s open palm.Not in the flesh, but the wound.donating = lovingFor seventeen years, I have been spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars each month composing The Marginalian (which bore the outgrown name Brain Pickings for its first fifteen years). It has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, no assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor makes your own life more livable in any way, please consider lending a helping hand with a donation. Your support makes all the difference.newsletterThe Marginalian has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s most inspiring reading. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.