He said: "At least now I know. Before now, I didn't know. I thought that it was just me and that this was just part of the way I am. I never could spell well and I was never good with names so this new thing didn't mean anything; not really. But, now, everything is different. My family is upstairs asleep and I am down here, crying and cursing God for the joke he has played on me. It's not fair, but then, again, I guess there is a lot in life that isn't fair. I'm not happy about what happened, but there you go. It will get worse over time. I will forget where I am. I will forget where I'm going. I will forget who you are. I will forget what you just said to me. I will forget to eat and I will forget that I have slept. I will forget who you are and that will be the worst part of it all. I will forget that I loved you."

Stumble It!

She said: "I was in the water. I don't remember how I got there. I wasn't pushed, so I must have jumped. The water was cold and black and there was fire all around me. Pieces of water were burning in the dark. I couldn't see much of anything. I couldn't tell if it was day or if it was night. I was cold, so I started to swim even though I didn't know where I was going. If I did nothing, I knew that I would die, so I swam. I swam for what seemed like hours. The fires around me didn't abate so it seemed to me that I wasn't going anywhere. I though of my parents and I though of my children and wondered if they were safe. I began to loose the feeling in my legs which made swimming harder. I was thrashing and calling out, hoping that someone would hear. There came a light, a very bright light and I heard voices. I looked into the light but everything was dark. Everything was dark and quiet and I was alone in the water, surrounded by fire that did not warm me. I don't know how I got there. I also don't know how I got here. For right now, I just want to go home."

Stumble It!

He said: "It's not enough to just say 'I Love You". Anyone can say those words. You have to make those words mean something; you have to make those words come alive to be believable. It's too easy, I think, to just say 'I love you". It's also too easy to say 'I'm leaving you now', or 'Why didn't you think to tell me that earlier?'. It's too easy to just say something that you think is the right thing to say. It's harder to mean something to someone; it's harder to live what you have said and to make and renew that thought every day and to make it real. Do you know what I mean?"

Stumble It!

She said: "There's so much death around us and we don't see it. There's the endless war, of course. I don't know any of those brave men and women. I see the pictures in the paper, but they are only names to me. My God, they are so young; too young to die like that. Then there are the crimes of violence where someone gets a gun and for no reason or for very little reason shoots someone dead. They may or may not know the person they killed. They may or may not really care. They are so unseen or unheard, the people who die like that. Then there are the deaths caused by indifference, like the young people who die of AIDS or other diseases that take them too young just because they wanted love to be a part of themselves and got indifference instead. There are certain deaths that some people can not handle and so willingly ignore. Those, I think, are the saddest of them all; to see them work so hard and so bravely at dying and then, at the end and except for perhaps a small circle of friends or family, face indifference. That's the saddest way to die, I think. To die in the face of indifference.

Stumble It!

He said: "I could not stay in that house of many sorrows. I had to leave. I had to get away from everything there. I would have gone anywhere, but luck sent me to San Francisco which was slowly falling apart. The Hippies had come and the Hippies had then moved on to other places. The leather cowboys were still there, but they then began to die and I was on the road again. I tried New Mexico, but it didn't stick. I moved to Chicago with no money and no sense of getting a job there, so I came here, and I liked it. It was OK. I could live here, so I did and I'm here still. I can't look back, so I don't bother. Some day it will all come together and I will know, for the first time maybe, who I am."

Stumble It!

She said: "Sometimes in the early morning, when the sun is just creeping up over the horizon you can feel the hand of God touching you and directing you to attend what there is to see and to marvel at how perfect it is, all by itself, without help from any of us. The air glows and the breeze is gentle and fragrant and the birds sing and rejoice and I am reminded again at the power of human silence. It's a subtle scent, like a flower opening, like the sound of water over stones."

Stumble It!

He said: "There are people all around me, frozen in time in Black an White in photographs in my home, on my walls. There are Aunts and Uncles and their children on Christmas Day or in the back yard swimming pool. Later, they are grinning from the back seat of someone's convertible in a driveway somewhere. Then there are retirement parties and trips to Florida to escape the cold up North. Then, nothing. Letters of Thanks for coming to the Funeral, maybe. The really old photos, the ones that Grandma and Grandpa had hidden away in dusty drawers, are the ones from the Old Country where the dead have windows in their boxes so that we can see them before the are covered in earth, and remember them. That's why we have all of these photos: so we can remember who we are."

Stumble It!

She said: "Everybody said to just keep moving, so I kept on moving. It was cold and it was dark and I didn't really know where I was and I didn't know how I would find the place I was going to and everything smelt like pee and I was cold and I was hungry and I was lost, but then this guy with a beard and glasses called to me and I knew that I wasn't supposed to talk to anyone there because it wasn't safe there, but I was cold and lost. I think he saw, even in the dark, that I was crying. He came in my direction and I didn't change direction and when he was closer and I could see him I asked him to tell me how to get to where I was going to sleep that night and he told me. I was only 4 or so blocks away and the poet showed me where to go where I would be warm and safe and where I would sleep on a stranger's floor there somewhere on Avenue C in 197o, in New York."

Stumble It!

He said: "It was all a mistake. I said 'yes' but she heard 'no'; I saw freedom, but she saw commitment. I experience joy, but she foresaw pain and failure. How could we have been so far apart and how could I not have known? I suppose it had something to do with wishful thinking. I suppose I should have listened better; I suppose it could have ended differently, but the fact is that it didn't and I wasn't and we couldn't or wouldn't and that was just the way it was. The next time I look into my heart, I will bring a flashlight as well. I can't blame her. I can't blame anyone. Who is there to blame when the sun sets or the breeze blows through the trees? No one, that's who. It was just all a mistake this time."

Stumble It!

She said: "There's nothing like a last goodbye. What's even better is waiting for your ship to come in. And when you mix them both together, you are cooking with gas. I like it when you can hear the other shoe drop. I can never hear the first one for some reason. I'm getting good, or at least better, in looking people in the eye. I find it impossible to look them both in the eye at the same time, but I'm working on it. I've been working on sharpening my skills for several months now and I can see a difference. I'm making Hay while the Sun Shines as they say. It's one day at a time and I can already see that my ship is coming in."

Stumble It!

He said: "It's the season of cold and I hate it. It's the time of year when I'm most in the dark because there is no light except what I turn 'on' and I hate it. I hate the clothes that I have to wear because they are heavy and ugly. I hate the shortness of the day and I hate having meals that were recently hot, but are not when I eat them. I hate the holidays that start the season of cold. They are only there to distract us from the damp and the cold. I hate sweaters and I hate bathrooms that are freezing. But I am a patient man. I can wait, and I do. I wait for the cold and the dark to pass and then I breathe again, knowing that I've won."

Stumble It!

She said: "We float through a world of fantastic wealth. What we want is brought to us. What we need is a foregone conclusion. The sun rises and sets on us in rays of gold. We have more than what we need and we want more. Dollars are exchanged instead of thoughts. We have but we must have more. It is viral across the land. There is no end in sight. How did it get this way? Who was the first to fall? How do we stop this train so that we can, as one, get off? It rains outside. The rain is golden. I tip my cup and drink with passion."

Stumble It!

He said: "When I looked in the mirror, I saw you. When I went outside, I saw you running. When I got to the subway, I heard the music you like playing, quietly, somewhere near. When I got to my office, there was a message from you, but I could not read it. When I went out for lunch, I looked around, thinking that you might like something to eat too. When I got home in the evening, you were not there. I sat down and waited, but you did not come. Some days start that way and some days end like that. Some mornings the sun comes up; some morning it rains. There's a little bit of everything in everyone. When I look in the mirror, I see you."

Stumble It!

He said: "We live in tough times. You've got to be tough if you're going to survive. There are people out there who really, truly, want to kill us. They would do anything to get to us and to wipe us off the face of the Earth. This is Gospel truth. You don't have to hear it from me; just look in the papers. We have to protect our selves and we have to protect our country. How, you ask, do we accomplish this task? We accomplish greatness by being tough and hard and strong. This is not a time for weakness. We have to be ready and we have to be strong. A few years ago things were different. But not now. These are desperate times! Take a look around you. You don't see many people fainting like they did a while ago. Granted, these were mostly the "fairer sex". But, awhile ago, even men would sometimes, you know, pass out due to stress or whatever. But that was then, this is now. We are tough. We are strong. Nobody does that swooning thing anymore. We are so over that now."

Stumble It!

She said: "It was the end of an era; an era that was fun and filled with excitement. As you may remember, we were creating a new way of life for a new decade. We were accused of the most foul scandals! I have to say that most of it was true. We wanted to burn down the bridges and then cross over on them. We had plans. Our vision reached far and wide and included new musical forms, new ways to think, new visions for dancers and writers and artists. We were the bomb that was thrown into the room while no one was watching. Ahh. But that was then and this is now. Things have calmed down to a great extent. No one is that excited anymore about anything. The paintings now look dated. The music is tiresome after the first few minutes. We stopped dying our hair and no longer wear outrageous clothes. It's the end of any era of everything being over the top. It's the end of a Grand Experiment. It's the end of a generation; the end of aluminum underwear."

Stumble It!