I Stumbled Out Into The

I Went Back To Those Graves Not Long Afterward And Found As I Stood There That Sadness Was A Very Heavy Thing. My Body Weighed Twice What It Had Only A Moment Earlier, As If Those Graves Were Pulling Me Down Toward Them.

As An American Man Of The 1990s Writing About A Japanese Woman Of The 1930s, I Needed To Cross Three Cultural Divides - Man To Woman, American To Japanese, And Present To Past.

A Mind Troubled By Doubt Cannot Focus On The Course Of Victory.

Now I Know That Our World Is No More Permanent Than A Wave Rising On The Ocean. Whatever Our Struggles And Triumphs, However We May Suffer Them, All Too Soon They Bleed Into A Wash, Just Like Watery Ink On Paper.

We None Of Us Find As Much Kindness In This World As We Should.