But sometimes hope gets trampled. Take last night, for example - as far as you can. The Blue Jays lost so I won't be watching the World Series next week, that is, IF they had won last night AND tonight. Too much to hope for, I guess. Remember that line of Emily Dickinson's: "Hope is the thing with feathers" and that, of course, makes me think of the opening of the movie "Forest Gump" with the feather floating and wafting about. (I think the music on the soundtrack is called, simply, the Feather Theme.)

The good news is (here comes Pollyanna) that I will have more time to work at my screenplay, which at present is cocooning in my head and maybe getting ready to break out. Things are starting to happen to it. I remember the first time I became conscious of what goes on during my creative process. I was working on a short play at an interested theatre and suddenly, or so it seemed to me, I got wet behind the eyeballs. Discovery! When the ground seems to move beneath your feet, when the sky opens up, when the light flashes, or, in my case, when I got wet behind the eyeballs, that's when the reason behind the play, behind the idea that I'd had to write that particular play, not only under my surface, but under the surface appearance of things - all that suddenly became apparent. The real wonder was not the recognition of it but the amazement that it was there all along, that it was intended, whether I was aware of it or not.

Call it serendipity. Why me? Why then? Why now? Why at all?

I know. Sometimes.