The Emotional Stakes A Memoirist Bets With

The Lesson You've Got To Learn Is The Someday You'll Someday Stagger To, Blinking In Cold Light, All Tears Shed, Ready To Poke Your Bovine Head In The Yoke They've Shaped. Everyone Learns This. Born, Everyone Breathes, Pays Tax, Plants Dead And Hurts Galore. There's Grief Enough For Each. My Mother Learned By Moving Man To Man, Outlived Them All. The Parched Earth's Bare (once She Leaves It) Of Any Who Watched The Instants I Trod It. Other Than Myself, Of Course. I've Made A Study Of Bearing And Forbearance. Everyone Does, It Turns Out, And Note Those Faces Passing By: Not One's A God.

Faith Is A Choice Like Any Other. If You're Picking A Career Or A Husband - Or Deciding Whether To Have A Baby - There Are Feelings And Reasons Pro And Con Out The Wazoo. But Thinking It Through Is - At The Final Hour - Horse Dookey. You Can Only Try Out.

There Are Women Succeeding Beyond Their Wildest Dreams Because Of Their Sobriety.

The Emotional Stakes A Memoirist Bets With Could Not Be Higher, And It's Physically Enervating. I Nap On A Daily Basis Like A Cross-country Trucker.

I'm Not Nearly Smart Enough Or Imaginative Enough To Tackle The Novel Form. Never Happen.