Love as a Moral Challenge

On Truman Capote's wistful novella, "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

I am always drawn back to the novels I read in my very early twenties. This was the time when I first began to take books seriously as LITERATURE, when I first turned to them for more than the story, more than a single reading, as models for the life (more accurately, the lives, because we’re not singular) that I wanted to live. It was also the time I decided writing was something I was going to do, that I would give up comfort in return for a few golden hours of crafting sentences out of the rough timber of words.

I lived in a cramped, cold apartment with a series of roommates; I ate tuna from the can (all I could afford); I worked as a cleaner before the sun had risen so my day would be free for writing. It wasn’t a comfortable way to live, and I looked forward to a future I knew was almost within reach — I just had to stretch far enough, want it hard enough. Back then, I waited for tomorrow to come and life to start. Now, I find myself looking back fondly at that time of simplicity …