Becoming LOST

Ghost of Gertrude Stein here

I was a den mother of sorts to the most famous of the lost generation writers,

who excelled in their prose and failed in life.

Perhaps it was because they stumbled so badly in the war 

or in their struggle to get published that they grew too focused on their steps.

Everybody knows if you are too careful.

 You are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.

One must dare to be happy, 

knowing that we are always the same age on the inside but must learn to be wiser than that.

 After all everybody, that is, everybody who writes

is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. 

That is why writers have to have two countries, 

the one where they belong and the one in which they live really. 

The second one is romantic, is separate from themselves, it is not real but it is really there.

Your truth will come to you if you but let it come.

 If the communication is perfect, 

the words have life, 

and that is all there is to good writing, 

putting down on the paper words 

which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.

And while you pursue your dream, 

learn from my Lost Generation 

and do not let it become the nightmare of those closest to you.