They Thought To Use And Shame Me

There Are Parts Of Texas Where A Fly Lives Ten Thousand Years And A Man Can't Die Soon Enough. Time Gets Strange There From Too Much Sky, Too Many Miles From Crack To Crease In The Flat Surface Of The Land.

Within A Social Structure, A Familial Structure, Or A Cultural Structure Of Various Kinds, There Is A Substitute For Actual Freedom. I Mean, Actual Freedom Is A Very Abstract Notion; We Have No Idea What It Means, Except Within A Context - Freedom To Do What? So Within These Social Structures, Freedom Becomes Defined As Power, Your Ability To Make Choices, And The Power Relationship Within A Family, Any Family.

I Remember, In Hot Floods, The Way He Slept, Still As Death, With His Face Washed Flat, Stony As A Carved Tomb And Exquisite. His Weakness And His Ravening Bitter Needs Were Terrible, And Beautiful, And Irresistible As An Earthquake. He Scalded Or Smothered Anyone He Needed, But His Needing And The Hurt That It Caused Me Were The Most Life I Have Ever Had. Remember What A Poor Thing I Have Always Been And Forgive Me.

In The End I Would Always Pull Up With A Sense Of Glory, That Loving Is The Strong Side. It's Feeble To Be An Object. What's The Point Of Being Loved In Return, I'd Ask Myself.

Sometimes All That Saves Me Is Being Willing To Make Mistakes. There Are Projects That Strike Me As So Beautiful, Important, Complicated, Or Just Plain Big, That They Convince Me Of My Own Inadequacy. This Awful State Of Reverence Leads To Paralyzing Brain Freeze. At Times Like That The Only Way Out Is For Me To Decide, 'to Hell With It. I Can't Do It Right, So I'll Do It Wrong. I Can't Do It Well, But I Can Do It Badly.' Sometimes, With Luck, While I'm Sweating To Do It Wrong, I Stumble On A Right Way.