If A Few Minutes Of Suffering Could

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.

Geisha Because When I Was Living In Japan, I Met A Fellow Whose Mother Was A Geisha, And I Thought That Was Kind Of Fascinating And Ended Up Reading About The Subject Just About The Same Time I Was Getting Interested In Writing Fiction.

It Was What We Japanese Called The Onion Life, Peeling Away A Layer At A Time And Crying All The While.

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.

How Many Times Already Had I Encountered The Painful Lesson That Although We May Wish For The Barb To Be Pulled From Our Flesh, It Leaves A Welt That Doesn't Heal?