Words.  Either we all have something to say, or none of us do.  A writer is nothing much more than a normal person bereft of a productive diversion.  It is arrogant in a sense, pretentious even, to write and preserve my own words as if they were important or valuable.  But I do.  I have been angry and miserable forever, preserving bitterness, hanging on to hatred because it felt powerful, a flaming, roaring, raging hate.  But there is no reason.  Even when there is some justification for anger, it is impreservable without tremendous and ever-increasing effort.  Like a morning fog, rage is wont to dissipate, giving way to clear light. 

And then there is nowhere to hide. 

I have always had a problem with responsibility.  Because we all overlap.  Our predecessors extend deeply into the substance of us from our beginning.  The edges of our friends overlap the edges of ourselves at every place of closeness.  We share the fabric of our lives to a greater or lesser extent with lovers and strangers alike; we give yards and yards of our warmest selves to those we love, and we tear away from grasping interlopers the shredded shards of our bitter edges. 

Our experiences are interwoven with the experience of others, and as much as we share these common strands, so do we share the duty of responding to those experiences.  My problem with responsibility is that I do not know how to share it.  I can take responsibility for something between us, or I can leave it for you to either accept, or not.  For me responsibility is a willingness and an eagerness to respond to experiences with both my intelligence and my heart. 

I don't know how to do that except alone.  God help me.