Shadow

does not exist by itself

To live with our shadow is to understand how human beings live at a frontier between light and dark, and to approach the central difficulty: that there is no possibility of a lighted perfection in this life…

Shadow was begun in Paris and then finished on the train from there to Amsterdam, a very pleasant journey indeed, after a time literally overshadowed by the Eyjafjallajökull Icelandic volcanic eruptions which had prevented all flights back to America and marooned me, albeit mercifully, in the City of Light, where I lived out a marvelous, temporary imprisonment, walking, writing, visiting museums and eating quite well across the length and breadth of Paris.