Reflection on the Words of an Honorary Texan

Yesterday morning after breakfast I finished reading Sam Shepard's Spy of the First Person, written in the months before he died from complications of Lou Gehrig's Disease in July of 2017. Shepard, who was hailed as "the coolest honorary Texan of all time" by Austin360, was able to complete this book of fiction with the assistance of loved ones who helped get his words to the printed page.

One sentence that particularly struck me was the following: "Although internally something must change, externally it remains fairly constant." When I read that aphoristic line, I thought of some of my own short stories, where characters are alone or virtually alone in a desolate setting. The world around them does not change significantly, it "remains fairly constant," but the characters themselves change in some way internally, even if, to the outside observer, nothing would appear different. And I thought about the great writer's final days, the lack of mobility, the unchanging quality of the room around him, and I am very grateful that he chose to record his final thoughts for posterity to ponder.