What I learned from touring this summer and every summer, actually, and every show and reading and art event and thing that makes people go: It's that there are all of these little communities around us and made up of us and that maybe it's our job to be aware of these communities and the people in these communities and how these people interact and how they make meaning, their interests and proclivities, their fears and loves, and how we're alike and how we're different and that maybe we need to make stuff that resonates for them too and take away something from our interactions, something that will make us grow and development and be more compassionate (because compassion is most often the answer), and that all of this is what makes art meaningful, what makes art nourish, what makes art transform. It's stepping out of our boxes and into the big bright and heavy world, knowing that we're not alone. It's the feeling of interconnectedness and family (one big, ever-growing) and most of all gratitude and that stepping into that is the greatest and most worthwhile risk.