I Do Have A Really Good Memory.

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.

A Dysfunctional Family Is Any Family With More Than One Person In It.

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

The Failures Of Other Genres To Provide An Emotional Connection With Some Of Their Characters And Narratives Gives Memoir A Toehold.