A turkey vulture glides over the creek, wings bent, head down. Fist-shaped clouds fill the sky. Am I the only one who braces a little all the time—in the Walmart, in the wildlands, in my home? You just never know what’s coming. When I was manic, I told the ER doctor my family was always exploding and floating. It’s true. The only way we survived each other was to float like vultures in our violent skies. Mania is a way to float when gravity’s fussy little hands won’t let go, when the weight of reality is unsurvivable. It’s a way up and out, all wing and wonder. Then you land, hard, the earth splitting you with its open hand. What’s my faith? That I’ll be broken again in this lifetime. I have faith in that the way the vulture has faith that he’ll find carrion before nightfall.