In order to write a memoir, Ive sat still inside the swirling vortex of my own complicated history like a piece of old driftwood, battered by the sea. Ive waitedsometimes patiently, sometimes in despairfor the story under pressure of concealment to reveal itself to me. Ive been doing this work long enough to know that our feelingsthat vast range of fear, joy, grief, sorrow, rage, you name itare incoherent in the immediacy of the moment. It is only with distance that we are able to turn our powers of observation on ourselves, thus fashioning stories in which we are characters
