Despite my dumb mistakes, I believe in progress. I
once put up for five years with a shower knob so calibrated that by turning it an eighth inch you went from Arctic waterfall to fiery brimstone. You had to stand under the showerhead to adjust the knob, not knowing if you’d perish by ice or by fire. But eventually a plumber replaced it. Life goes on. The sun comes up and the sun sets and the Mississippi runs into the Gulf and you can call it whatever you like, it’s the same Gulf. This evening I banged my head on a cupboard door, which I’ve done before and surely will again.
Flannery O’Connor said, “Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.” I did a radio show for forty years based on the world I grew up in, which is gone, and now I’m grateful for life itself, its significance yet to be determined.
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