I Was About 13, In Some Ways,

Without Privacy There Was No Point In Being An Individual.

The Pain Was Quite Extraordinary. And Yet Also Weirdly Welcome And Restorative, Bringing Him News Of His Aliveness And His Caughtness In A Story Larger Than Himself.

Just As The Camera Draws A Stake Through The Heart Of Serious Portraiture, Television Has Killed The Novel Of Social Reportage.

I've Moved Away From That Sort Of Deep-ecological Extremism. I Started To Think: What Can We Do For Wild Birds Right Now? I Don't Want These Particular Species To Disappear.

He Watched A Catbird Hopping Around In An Azalea That Was Readying Itself To Bloom; He Envied The Bird For Knowing Nothing Of What He Knew; He Would Have Swapped Souls With It In A Heartbeat. And Then To Take Wing, To Know The Air's Buoyancy Even For An Hour: The Trad Was A No-brainer, And The Catbird, With Its Lively Indifference To Him, Its Sureness Of Physical Selfhood, Seemed Well Aware Of How Preferable It Was To Be The Bird.