Yet Somehow The Thing That Startled Me

Hopes Are Like Hair Ornaments. Girls Want To Wear Too Many Of Them. When They Become Old Women They Look Silly Wearing Even One.

From This Experience, I Understood The Danger Of Focusing Only On What Isn't There. What If I Came To The End Of My Life And Realized That I'd Spent Every Day Watching For A Man Who Would Never Come To Me? What An Unbearable Sorrow It Would Be, To Realize I'd Never Really Tasted The Things I'd Eaten, Or Seen The Places I'd Been, Because I'd Thought Of Nothing But The Chairman Even While My Life Was Drifting Away From Me. And Yet If I Drew My Thoughts Back From Him, What Life Would I Have? I Would Be Like A Dancer Who Had Practiced Since Childhood For A Performance She Would Never Give.

My Mother Once Told Me I Was Like Water. Water Can Carve Its Way Even Through Stone. And When Trapped, Water Makes A New Path.

His Face Was Very Heavily Creased, And Into Each Crease He Had Tucked Some Worry Or Other, So That It Wasn't Really His Face Any Longer, But More Like A Tree That Had Nests Of Birds In All Of The Branches. He Had To Struggle Constantly To Manage It And Always Looked Worn Out From The Effort.

Finally The Homeless Eel Marked Its Territory, I Suppose, And The Doctor Lay Heavily Upon Me, Moist With Sweat.