In The Absence Of A

Some Of Us Who Live In Arid Parts Of The World Think About Water With A Reverence Others Might Find Excessive.

Life Changes In The Instant. The Ordinary Instant.

Although I Have Felt Compelled To Write Things Down Since I Was Five Years Old, I Doubt That My Daughter Ever Will, For She Is A Singularly Blessed And Accepting Child, Delighted With Life Exactly As Life Presents Itself To Her, Unafraid To Go To Sleep And Unafraid To Wake Up. Keepers Of Private Notebooks Are A Different Breed Altogether, Lonely And Resistant Rearrangers Of Things, Anxious Malcontents, Children Afflicted Apparently At Birth With Some Presentiment Of Loss.

Lancaster, California ... That Promised Land Sometimes Called 'the West Coast Of Iowa.

I Was No Longer, If I Had Ever Been, Afraid To Die: I Was Now Afraid Not To Die.