"... Meanwhile, he had Ann. In the same way you might have your health, or have a view of the sea, or have something to say when you sat down to write: it could all go in a flash.
That is, if you tried to possess it. If you tried to control it. His relation to Ann, to his writing, to nature, that he strove for if he didn't always achieve it, was to put back in more than he took out. To grant what he wished to gain. To give, to empty out, without expectation of reward. To surrender.
He looked up from what he was doing and saw Ann sitting under a light, with her feet pulled up under her and an afghan over her lap, reading. He loved her so much it made his heart ache.
Ann felt him looking at her and looked up. She smiled.
He was sober, he had a good woman, sometimes the shit would roll out of his typewriter like thunder. If he lost it, any part of it or all of it, it would only make him more human, for loss is the way life must end.
Meanwhile, he was part of something. He fit. Defects and all.
You cannot lose what do you do not try to keep.
"
— Jack Saunders (OYB novelist)
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