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I had an idea for an essay yesterday. I did not write it down and now it is gone. It was something about boundaries, and the word "no," and whether our universe is really real or if it may be a virtual universe.

There was something, too, about our bodies, the table, the chair I sit on, being made mostly of space, not molecules. That the volume I occupy here in the kitchen, me, is more empty than not. That billions of little space molecules zing through our bodies all the time, every day, and they don't hurt at all because they're just zinging through emptiness.

How can a brain that is more empty than not hold on to any thought at all? And speaking of brains, I read recently that our brains are laid out on a grid. Our thoughts criss-cross at 90º angles. Like we were designed to be a circuit board or something…but that's weird.

But back to boundaries. A tantruming two-year-old looks tough, but really she's just beginning to figure out who she is and who she isn't. Where she starts and where she's no longer she, but now it's something else. Screaming at the top of her lungs to see how far her scream carries, to find out that she's the only one screaming. No! she stamps her foot, No! she cries, not to be difficult, but to figure out the point at which she separates from yes, the word of acquiescence, of surrender.

When you tell me No! is that your way of saying, This is who I am?

Human body made of stardust