 She writes essays, lists, letters, emails, captions, and text messages, and she publishes books at Carvel and Express. She's opening a children's center for questions and care in 2015 in the Outer Sunset of San Francisco, where she lives. She's so great. Please welcome Sarah Fontaine. Yeah, so the only thing you need to know is that this started as a job description for the person I need to hire for the preschool I'm opening. It turned into whatever it is, and it's called. The light is the very best thing, and we know it. For the longest time, a very long time, the babies in the prisons in Sacramento, where all the decisions are made about California, were so far from each other. For the longest time, a very long time, there was the separate high school teaching, and there was the separate caring for separate tiny children, and there was the separate Sacramento walking down the hallway past Governor Brown's office with a big bear outside. People taking photos with the bear and the guards outside the office and all of us waiting next to elevators and saying good morning with to-go cups of coffee in the security line. Next to Governor Brown's office, very, very close to his office, receiving group email forwards from his staffer and very far from entering his office behind the representative bear. For the longest time, a very long time, the representative bear felt very far away from the babies and how they are living, which felt very far away from the bike trips about what we were doing when we weren't in prison. They all felt very far away from each other. A particular ability of staffers who work for legislators in the Capitol building in Sacramento develops after they've been going to that building every day for six months or so. Usually all it takes is six months or so to learn to look exactly like they are listening. At first, they actually listen, and then they learn how to look like they are listening. Well enough that it would be rude of someone to suggest that they are not. Because being in the building with the particular inboxes and email signatures and the particular pants and how they fit and the long walks down the hallways where everyone knows not to say anything important audibly, things keep being very far away feeling and they must to get any work done. To get any work done, all the things that the work is being done about must feel very, very far away. If the things the work is being done about feel close, then the work is not possible. Most work is this way. For example, to keep jobs for prison guards, the prisoners must remain the concept criminal. For example, to take away jobs from the prison guards union, the prison guards families, including their babies in their Central Valley homes next to Starbucks and Farnesees must remain conceptual. For example, to continue to budget $9 million per year to keep prisoners and prison guards in prisons in the Central Valley next to the almond trees, the actual people called prisoners and prison guards must remain conceptual. The work depends on electricity, coffee and abstraction. The work depends on waiting for elevators and semi-formal outfits, which level every consideration to one plane. The emails level every consideration to one plane. The calendar full of meetings levels every consideration to one plane. Each consideration is a concept which keeps being far away feeling. Concepts about people in prison since they were 16 years old without the possibility of parole for driving a car while someone else shot someone else. Concepts about where to get food for lunch. Concepts about whether to endorse a bill. Concepts keeping other concepts conceptual. Most work depends on this. Sometimes when in Sacramento in the building where decisions are made about the state, I hand out stapled sheets of paper with budget proposal concepts on them. Specific asks to connect conceptual money to actual people. I talked to Vee who married someone in a prison and he just got out of prison. It's hard for her because he's not as much of a concept anymore. She was used to spending most of her time lobbying for people like her husband and now that he's out he needs help because the parole officer can come by any time to their house unannounced and because he hasn't lived outside since the internet was born among other details which are often excluded from our concepts of our lives. Sometimes the concepts keep us very far away even when we are very close like for example visiting adults who have never had cell phones who live in a prison in the Central Valley next to the almond trees. The concept of the space and the concrete and the razor wire around us and the guards at the table behind us keep us very far apart. The concept of what I was doing with my time for example before I walked into the prison that day which was making decisions about how many shelves to put up in the hallway of that new house I'm remodeling or decisions about whether I have time to go to the beach for sunset which is one block from the house I'm remodeling. These concepts make acres of distance between me and the person I am sitting next to in prison while she tells me what she's been doing before I got here which is getting beaten up repeatedly. Or for example the concept of how much money she owes in restitution distances her from the possibility of a particular kind of relationship with her four sons who live outside of the prison probably with cell phones and many concepts which distance them from her in addition to the concept of physical distance between the sons and the prison where this might become a job description is where you come in which is sometimes maybe sometimes together things will happen with concepts and light sometimes later and now maybe we'll remember people were always babies and babies were always people. If you come to work at this new business in this new job with me we will be conceptual artists and maybe sometimes everything will be very close including the concepts. We will change the diapers of other humans who do not yet have cell phones and that is obviously close. We will lie down next to humans who do not yet have email addresses and seeing them to sleep while they don't even try to ignore their mental to-do lists which is also a closeness. We will talk to the babies like we remember that they will be adults so soon and we will talk to the adults like we remember they used to so recently be babies. If you come to work at this new business in this new job with me Governor Brown might not be that close to us and bike trips might also not but maybe we will be able to leave concepts altogether for tiny moments next to tiny people holding soil in our hands. Maybe holding soil in our hands we could see what exists behind concepts momentarily. Behind the concepts is where babies live which is something you'll get lots of exposure to if you come to work at this new business in this new job with me. Sometimes for the longest time, a very long time I walk from the entrance of the prison to the visiting room on the concrete rose lined path outside and I listen to the guard with the mustache. It's spring so the roses are blooming hugely lining the path I'm walking down for a very long time and the guard with the mustache describes his concepts of his own hatred of Jerry Brown for taking all the water south. Everyone is gonna get valley fever because you take the water south you kill the soil. Without soil you have just have dust and dust is where valley fever grows. The guard is partial to roses himself because he has so many of them at home. My concepts about him prevent me from remembering that he was just a baby recently and what concepts he had about roses then when he learned how to smell them even though it was only 45 years ago or so. If you come to work at this new business in this new job with me we might remember that Governor Jerry Brown was a baby recently and think about when he might have learned to smell roses but probably most of the time we'll forget. He'll continue to pump water past the central valley to LA because the prison guards roses and the valley fever in the presenters lungs remain conceptual suspended in that far away feeling. At this new business in this new job we'll leave the changing of the world to natural disasters and interplanetary dynamics. Hold soil in our hands trying to see light. Through the thick concepts we're perpetually forming about who people are when they are one or two years old or 45 years past being a baby. When we can't see past the concepts that separate us from every other thing we'll just notice them and say hi. Like babies do to everyone and everything all the time because what better thing is there to do than that. If you come to work at this new business in this new job with me maybe we can remind each other that the light is the very best thing. We can know it as a concept and or we can feel it when standing in the garden as actual recipients. Let's do that okay. Let's do that and invite the babies with us and everyone who used to be a baby also. Thanks. Sarah Fontaine. Gosh who wouldn't want to go and work with Sarah Fontaine. Oh my God maybe you might have to take to some interviewing after the reading. Wow that was beautiful. Our next writer up here is Maya Chinchia. She is a Guatemalan Bay Area based writer and video artist.