I had always sung, as far back as I can remember, for the pure love of it. My voice was contralto, and I sang in a church in Naples from fourteen till I was eighteen.
It's my rule never to lose me temper till it would be detrimental to keep it.
Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. 'Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it's done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.'
I was a bed wetter till very late. My mom used to hang my sheets out the window to dry, and I'd have to run home from school in order to beat the other kids to my house so they wouldn't see them.
And from a poise at this station the plane may swoop down, at great disadvantage if close to the back of the wave, at various slopes and directions till it cuts into the air that is being raised by the face of the following wave, which again enables it to resume its velocity.
Often I think bullying - especially in its adult, verbal forms - is the sort of thing you don't realize till the end of the day, and it's a horrible feeling to realize something wasn't just a bland statement, but was actually cruel. But then we're all capable of - of things that are breathtakingly cruel.
It's kind of a lonely work, because you just have to keep your pole in the water. I always had a little routine of going into whatever room I was using at the time to write in and just staying in there till I felt like I got a bite.
