Verbs. All Of Them Tiring.

From My Childhood, I Remember A Tiny Old Woman Named Mary, Made Pale And Almost Translucent By Time. Mary's Childhood Memories Extended Back To The Confusing And Violent Finale Of The Civil War, And She Told Stories Of Brutal Murders In Those Days And Refused To Name Some Of The Killers, As If Dead Men Might Still Be Prosecuted In The Late 1950s.

She Wondered If Literature Might Lose Some Of Its Interest When She Reached An Age Or State Of Mind Where Her Life Was Set On Such A Sure Course That The Things She Read Might Stop Seeming So Powerfully Like Alternate Directions For Her Being.

I've Lived Out West Some... I've Always Liked The High Plains Areas - Eastern Colorado, Eastern Wyoming, Western Nebraska.

But She Couldn't Dismiss Easily His Light Touch With Her. No Pushing Or Pressing, None Of That Herding And Corralling Bullshit, Unlike Any Of Her Old Boyfriends. And Maybe Who You Fell For And Who You Eventually Loved Wasn't Rational, No Matter How Hard You Tried To List Pros And Cons And Sum The Results. You Couldn't Think Your Way Through It, Not All The Way. Maybe Just The Scent Of Somebody Carried More Weight Than Everything Else Put Together.

We Are Not Strong Enough To Stand Up Against Endless Grief, And Yet Pain Is The Constant Drone Of Life. So If We Are To Have Any Happiness At All, It Is Only In The Passing Instant.