"In mid December of 2004, for some completely unknown reason, a complimentary issue of Time Magazine showed up in my mailbox. I hate the periodical, never read it except when I'm at the dentist, so I have no idea why it arrived. On the front cover was George W. Bush's face, he had been selected as "Person of the Year" by the magazine's editors after his reelection as president. Just one more reason to hate the publication. As I flipped through the pages with masochistic curiosity while drinking my morning coffee, I came across the following, an excerpt from Late Ripeness, written by Czesław Miłosz, a poet I had never heard of:

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

His words have stuck with me. I read them at a time when I was starting to rethink the aesthetics of my music and here were phrases that gave me some hope that, even if it took until I was ninety, I might find my way. I cut out the excerpt and taped it to my refrigerator, where it stayed for years..."