Book excerpt: In poetic prose, Forrester navigates leaving a life in one state and picking up in another and repeating the process through various and vast personal, social, and political landscapes. It's a personal story and it's an investigation of change and how we tend to hide away the most valuable parts of ourselves, especially, paradoxically, the parts that help us survive change, the parts that make us Soft Hearted, and we need more soft-heartedness in all times and in all places.