He said: "She could usually tell what he was thinking. She could read it from the lines on his face. He would scrunch his face up into a tight ball and anyone could see that he was in some sort of pain. But she could read his face deeper than anyone else could. She could feel what he felt and see what it was that had taken hold of him at that moment. He, like most men, didn't know how to express himself. He didn't know what to say when someone asked him how he felt that day. She was the translator. She was the one who could divine what he was thinking about and what he wanted to say but did not have the words for. She was his voice when he had no voice to speak with. She was the one who understood him."

Stumble It!

She said: "We are just like the animals: we run like the animals, we jump like the animals, we chase each other just like the animals. We have eyes to see with like the animals and we have noses to smell with like the animals. We chase and wear down others of our species like the animals do and then we rip their bodies apart like the animals. We foul the air and the water like the animals do and then say it wasn't us, like the animals do. There's not much between us and the animals except that the animals don't drive cars and they don't make atomic bombs. Other than that, we're pretty much just like the animals are."

Stumble It!

He said: "You see? It's a circle and you can be in the center of it or you can be on the edges. If you're in the center you can see everything because it's all there for you to see. You just have to look around and everything in the circle is present. In the center you see where you've been and where you can go if you want to. On the edge you can only see what is passing through you. You can see a little bit ahead and a little bit behind you, but basically you have to go where the circle takes you. You don't have a lot of options. It's safer to be on the edge. There aren't so many things to distract you and what you see is what you will someday get. In the center all the possible combinations of expression and all the ways you can go are boundless. It can be hard to make a decision when there are so many choices. I can't guild you. Nobody, really, can guide you. You must take the journey alone. That's the hardest part; knowing that you will travel far, but you will travel alone."

Stumble It!

She said: "Oh, I used to love travel. The excitement of getting on a plane and taking off and being served drinks and food and magazines and, you know, just being treated like someone special. We were all special then. It was special to be on an airplane. Oh, I loved taking a pleasure boat somewhere and be on an ocean for several days and meeting people just like me and being asked to eat dinner with the Captain and having free drinks and just, you know, kicking back into some kind of fantasy life that for a few days was mine. I don't know what's changed, but it's not way it used to be. I'm not trying so much to catch up with myself like I used to do. I guess that it's because I'm already here and there's nothing, really, to catch up to. And, you know, when everyone is doing the same thing it's not special anymore. It's not like it used to be and I'm OK with that."

Stumble It!

He said: "It's always raining somewhere, but why does it have to rain so much here? Why is it my head on which drips make a temporary home? Why is it my shoes that squeak on the office floor? Why is it always my umbrella that collapses in a gust of wet wind? I know we need water to rain on us so that we can drink it and so that the fruit will grow and so we can wash in it and be cooled by it, but why does it only seem to rain on me wherever I am? What do other people know about the rain that I don't know? And how will I get this knowledge?"

Stumble It!

He said: "I was dreaming it was 105 degrees but there was no sun; in fact, everything was dark and my mind thought that I was dreaming and I couldn't wake up and I wasn't really certain where I was, exactly. But it was hot. I mean burning hot and all I wanted was a cool drink of water, but as it was so dark, I was afraid to move anywhere at all because I might fall into a vat of burning oil or something. First I thought it was so dark because there wasn't any light, but then I realized that the darkness was from the burning oil and then I smelled it and was sick. I don't know how I got to the burning oil but once i figured out where I was , I was quick to try and get out before I burned up. The air was poison and the water was poison and where ever I turned there was fire and stink. Then the nurse came into the room and took my vitals and wrote something on the chart and I didn't want to sleep any more because of the terrible smell of that oil."

Stumble It!

She said: It sure was a long way to come. I supposed it would be worth it. The painter was well know by then, having a lover in New York and another here who flattered her while she worked on her canvases. Oh, the colors she brought to her pictures; they made you dizzy they were such strong colors. A man would never use those colors. It was up to her to free them so that we could all see them. The last few miles to where she lived were bumpy and difficult. There were several times when the men had to get out and push the cars over a log or through some fast running water. After nearly a month of travel, we were ready for almost anything. Anything, that is, except those pictures; those divine paintings that just jumped off of the canvas, hitting you square between the eyes. Although I knew what I would see there, I was not prepared for the reality. The reality was so much more than what I had expected. It was so much more than I could have ever guessed."

Stumble It!

He said: "I looked up and saw a child, a boy, running down the hall. Then he turned the corner and was gone, but before he disappeared, he stopped for a moment and turned around and looked right at me. I didn't know who he was or where he came from, but I felt like, somehow, I knew this kid from somewhere. I just couldn't remember where. I thought about it all day which is weird because I'm not the kind of person who broods. But I kept seeing, in my mind's eye, that boy, stopping, turning around and looking directly at me before running around the corner. Why didn't I run after him? Or call out to him or something. The answer to that is I didn't know who he was when he looked at me like that. I didn't now that I knew him so very very well; that he was a part of me in some way. Why didn't I run after him? Why didn't I do something to catch up with him? Maybe I'll get another chance, but, somehow, I don't think so. I don't really believe anyone get's another second chance."

Stumble It!

She said: "I always knew she was crazy. She was always the one who wanted to do crazy things like going sky diving. The rest of us would just shake our heads in wonder. She was the one who drank like a fish and then some. She went through boy friends like pints of ale. She was just always pushing the limits and, truth be told, we kinda l0ved her for doing things that we would never ever ever do. But she didn't seem to ever be afraid or even care about he own welfare or anything like that. She was just a "Good Time Charlie". Of course she hated her name, Charlene. Wanted to be called Tishah and all. When she wanted to go and take lessons for how to jump out of a plane, none of use even batted an eye. Just another crazy Tisha stunt. That's what we thought. By, oh my God, we never thought this would happen. Oh my God. Never! I'm so glad I didn't go out with the rest that day. I had a dental appointment and couldn't go and watch her do her first jump. Boy, am I glad for that appointment. I couldn't have taken it. Like my shrink said when I went to see him on my next visit: "A challenge embodies the risk of failure. OK. I know that, but I still can't sleep thinking about it all."

Stumble It!

He said: "She was the oldest daughter of emigrants and married the oldest son of emigrants; gave him two sons and a daughter and moved the dishes and the curtains each time they moved to another foreign place. Her right hip was injured at birth and she always walked with a limp that she tried to hide, but couldn't. She held on to a slight accent from living among people who had to relearn a language to speak. She had small hands and big feet. She smoked a lot and loved to cut pats of butter and eat each of them on a small piece of bread. Sometimes she didn't even bother with the bread. Her husband had other wives but no other children. She sat down one night to watch Walter Cronkite give the days' news and she never got up. She had a heart attack and died before the first commercial and she died never really knowing what it was like to not be an emigrant."

Stumble It!

She said: "I have this urgent need sometimes to remake myself. I feel like I have to cast off who I am or was and become something new, something different. I need to transform myself into another person because I get so bored being the person that I am. It's hard work, let me tell you. It's a struggle sometimes because there might be two or more people trying to be the new me. Boy, that can get weird and crazy. I once was trying to become a young man and an older woman both at the same time. I just couldn't make up my mind. Actually it was more like my body was not sure which way to go. I stayed a woman that time. It was just too hard to have a penis. It's easier now, if I wanted. They do the most amazing things, those doctors. They can almost do anything."

Stumble It!

She said: "Oh, no body cares about somebody else's art. It's 'cause everybody makes their own art in their kitchen or while they're at work. I mean, EVERYBODY makes art now. There's art happening all over the place. I, myself, don't care that much for most of this new art. I think it's ugly. And a lot of it is small, and I'm talking here "TINY" little itsy bitsy art that they make on their cell. It's nano art. Like 6 pixels by 8 pixels. What am I suppose to see there? If some bird flys over and takes a poop, it's gone. Wiped out. And, no body paints now. That's too yesterday. And there's not much poetry either. Who wants to listen to something that is more than 15 seconds long? Art, now, is a t-shirt or something sprayed on a wall or on the sidewalk. It's 10 or 15 words solumly murmured in a store front. Art is something that you think about and then forget. It's old stuff that someone made 20 or more years ago. Art, now, is an app."

Stumble It!

He said: "Gee. I mean anyone would have done the same thing. No one would leave someone on the side of the road like that and not help, right? I mean, it's what we do as humans. It's what set's us apart from the animals. At lease that was what I was taught in school. Maybe that's not how it is now, I don't know. With these endless wars that go on so long we can't really remember what we're fighting for, or what we're fighting against. But, you know? No one just leave someone that has been hit by a car and who goes over the roof of the car practicaly, and who ends up on the sidewalk and who is really messed up; no one would just drive on and pretend that it didn't happen, right? I stopped my car. I waved other driver down to at least slow them down. I got my cell and I called for help. That's all I did. It's not a big deal. Anyone would have done the same thing. Right?"

Stumble It!

She said: "Well, we had been on the road since daybreak and were getting kinda hungry, so we pulled off the road to get something to eat and this roadside place looked good and was busy, which is always a good sign. So, we went on in and the place was hopping. There were 2 sided to order from. If you were doing "take out", you ordered in one place, and if you were gonna eat it there, there was another place to order. We learned this later. What I eventually noticed was that everyone in that place yelled at the top of their voices. Long story short: They called out "Two Jersey Breakfasts" which was what we ordered. I went to the back to pick up our order, but the lady back here, after asking what we were getting started yelling: "I don't know you. I don't know anything about your "Jersey Breakfast". Where did you order? And then she started yelling into the front, where, in fact, we had placed our order. "Why'd you let them order from the Back when they were gonna eat here?" And she went on about where our food was and then yelling about how no on ever follows no rules and on and on. Just as I was gonna get out of that crazy place, the guy who took our order came over with our breakfasts, so we sat down and ate. You could see, just by looking at him that he had to put up with a lot of yelling and you could tell it was wearing on him. What a nut house! Needless to say, we won't ever go back there. They're all crazy!"

Stumble It!

He said: "In the quiet, when I'm driving between home and and back, I marvel at the stillness of time as it gently flows over us and around us, each moment different than the one just past, but each moving to the same place eventually. In between the present breathing and the anticipation of the next one, there is a peace in the creation of another piece of movement in the world that I am a member of, riding on a sea of memory, sadness, and joy. Moments of life from when I was a child appear and then are gone, like a breath. It is in this manner that I survive. It is in this manner that we all, I suppose, survive. The story is in the breath and as we wait for the next part of the story, it becomes the past and we begin to remember all over again."

Stumble It!

She said: "She was old. No one wanted her really. She was sick a lot and no body wants to be around old sick people. And she was always forgetting stuff, like her cell phone number and where she put the keys. I mean, how hard is it to not loose your keys? I told her over and over to just put the darn keys in one place, but she could never remember to do that. And her clothes and stuff were smelly. She was also always going to the doctor for stuff. You'd think they were having some affair or something. Gross! And she had to take all these pills and stuff. All she really did was watch TV and cook. That's all. I guess most of her girlfriends were either dead, or in a home somewhere, so I tried to be nice to her, but she didn't have a whole lot to say that was that interesting. So, anyway, she was old, then she died and I got my old room back."

Stumble It!