In the end, it was heartbreaking. As I locked the door to my apartment for the last time I had to summon all the courage I could muster to not break down. Don't look back, I told myself, only forward, cautious of not meeting the same fate as Lot's wife in the old testament, who dared to confront with a final gaze the home she was to leave behind.

The cosmos, it would seem, has never been kind to women who linger, for to do so is to desire to feed one's subjectivity, to broaden the contours of one's sensual memory. Think of Persephone, who resisted for so long a taste of pomegranate, then, because she yielded, was exiled. She could no longer live in one place permanently and was condemned to move between worlds.