I am discarding the notion that I must begin this writing by justifying the act of this writing. That is the usual weight around my neck; that sad and guilty and womanish feeling, suspecting that surely there is something more important I ought to be doing. I am not sure where I absorbed as Truth that everything - literally, everything in the world, howsoever intangible yet existent - mysteriously supersedes my own well being and interests. I usually blame my mother. This is probably unfair. She was once one of 14 children on a farm in Iowa. Only twelve survived. The oldest died of something historical and dramatic like cholera in 1920fucking whenever, never crossing paths with my WWII-era mom. But as a child, she swept up the remains of her youngest sibling - a toddler - after the little one was run over by a truck: my drunk grandfather didn't see her crawling in the driveway. Yes, there are many questions raised by this story. But its real point is, she is a magically stoic wo...