I Want To Be Independent. To Meet

Cassandra Wondered At The Mind's Cruel Ability To Toss Up Flecks Of The Past. Why, As She Neared Her Life's End, Her Grandmother's Head Should Ring With The Voices Of People Long Since Gone. Was It Always This Way? Did Those With Passage Booked On Death's Silent Ship Always Scan The Dock For Faces Of The Long-departed?

. . . Companions Were To Be Valued, Wherever One Found Them.

Wars Make History Seem Deceptively Simple. They Provide Clear Turning Points, Easy Distinctions.: Before And After, Winner And Loser, Right And Wrong. True History, The Past, Is Not Like That. It Isn't Flat Or Linear. It Has No Outline. It Is Slippery, Like Liquid; Infinite And Unknowable, Like Space. And It Is Changeable: Just When You Think You See A Pattern, Perspective Shifts, An Alternate Version Is Proffered, A Long-forgotten Memory Resurfaces.

The Happiest Folk Are Those That Are Busy, For Their Minds Are Starved Of Time To Seek Out Woe.

In Real Life Turning Points Are Sneaky. They Pass By Unlabeled And Unheeded. Opportunities Are Missed, Catastrophes Unwittingly Celebrated. Turning Points Are Only Uncovered Later, By Historians Who Seek To Bring Order To A Lifetime Of Tangled Moments.