I study the photos. They are ethereal and misty. I want to hear what his photographs are saying. I lay flat on the floor in complete calmness, nothing audible but my own heart beat. It beats quickly, firmly, beautifully. I think about a homeless man who played a song for my ten-month old daughter and me on the street yesterday, and then he helped me back out of a tight parking spot. Before I drove off he told me that his song was called "Lost in the Rain" and I know he knows what that feels like. I do, but only briefly. The left side of his face was a bulbous blue and purple growth. I come back to my heart. This beating may be the last sound I hear some day. It was also the first sound I ever heard when I was so small and not quite real in my mother's body, when she was the source keeping my heart beating. We are all linked, at least in this: everythng comes back to that beat.

And as I lay there, registering the rise and fall of each breath, I thought of someone I know who is dying and wished he were there with me, feeling his heart beating, too. It is only through this food and water fed body, bone to brain, that we can gain a hint of the exalted state. The strength of the thigh muscle, striding, the boldness of movement-Casado's models demonstrate a fierce attraction to life. I love this body and the place it can take me.