I've Never Contended That I Had A

I Don't Think I Look Like The Pope's Favorite Catholic - At Least Not Under Close Scrutiny.

The Emotional Stakes A Memoirist Bets With Could Not Be Higher, And It's Physically Enervating. I Nap On A Daily Basis Like A Cross-country Trucker.

I'd Spent Way More Years Worrying About How To Look Like A Poet -- Buying Black Clothes, Smearing On Scarlet Lipstick, Languidly Draping Myself Over Thrift-store Furniture -- Than I Had Learning How To Assemble Words In Some Discernible Order.

If Dysfunction Means That A Family Doesn't Work, Then Every Family Ambles Into Some Arena In Which That Happens, Where Relationships Get Strained Or Even Break Down Entirely. We Fail Each Other Or Disappoint Each Other. That Goes For Parents, Siblings, Kids, Marriage Partners - The Whole Enchilada.

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.