Like All Guests, After A Fortnight, Grief

My Idea Was Always To Start With A Small Press And Then Move Up To A National Press. I Had Those Goals For My Career From The Time I Was A Very Young Woman. I Wanted To Win A Local Award, Then I Wanted A State Or National Award. Small Press, Big Press. Some Women Fantasize About Their Weddings, Their Husbands, And Children. I Fantasized About What I Wanted To Accomplish With My Books.

Mom Used To Walk With Me For Something Like Two Or Three Miles To Get To The Day-old Bakery. They Had Those Machines Where You Buy Doughnuts, Those Vending Machines With The Long Johns And Doughnuts. We Would Buy Those Bagels And Pastries Because That Was Our Treat. And Come Back With Shopping Bags Of These Sweets, And Who Knows What Was In It? That Was What We Could Afford That Could Feed That Many People.

You Can Never Have Too Much Sky . You Can Fall Asleep And Wake Up Drunk On Sky, And Sky Can Keep You Safe When You Are Sad. Here There Is Too Much Sadness And Not Enough Sky. Butterflies Too Are Few And So Are Flowers And Most Things That Are Beautiful. Still, We Take What We Can Get And Make The Best Of It.

Perhaps The Greatest Challenge Has Been Trying To Keep My Time To Myself And My Private Life Private In Order To Do My Job. Everything That Is Most Mine Belongs To Everyone Now.

I've Been On Television Saying, "¡vamos A La Biblioteca!". That Was Great. Nobody Had Ever Asked Me.