It is true that along the way, these past few months, I managed to propose a number of possible titles. A couple of even made it to my approved list. But eventually they were inevitably, all dismissed or abandoned, one after the other. 

First it was simply LIFE. That didn't seem to be enough, for in leaving out who's life it belonged to, it didn't show the symmetry of the story. So it got expanded to MY LIFE. But that said too much, and no longer carried a promise of mystery. 

For a while I toyed with the idea of THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF A STORY. What self-indulgence, I thought. Why point to the obvious. That one got quickly dropped. 

After that I seriously considered THE CHRONICLE OF A DISASTER. It seemed appropriate enough for what was happening or not happening at the time. Again a part of me was dissatisfied, saying that if DISASTER referred to the unforgivable enormity it reduced it to banality, and if it referred to the telling of the story itself, it reduced it to triviality.  That part of me had a point there.

For a couple of weeks I felt delighted with A SEASON OF COMFORT. But a part of me argued that it really should be A SEASON OF DISCOMFORT. The rest of me disagreed, pointing out that DISCOMFORT would kill the irony of the title. Eventually both were dismissed. They were too lyrical anyway for my purpose. And misleading, because finally it is not my winter of despair that should be emphasized here, but the spring of anxiety that confronts me. 

So here I am. Without a title again, unable to proceed in any direction. I could go back to the unpromising LIFE, or even MY LIFE, and leave it at that, but that would be a form or regression. And so this morning, as I continue searching for the right combination of words on which to hang this story, I suddenly remember how I once questioned the vagueness of this story and it occurs to me that perhaps this story should be called HERE & ELSEWHERE. The HERE being the plave where you, the readers, and I have been united with words, and the ELSEWHERE the site where I have lived my life events. HERE where the story is trying to be told, ELSEWHERE where it happened. 

There is also the temptation of FURTHER ABANDONMENT since the story, and what nourishes it are constantly being abandoned. But finally, having to face the fact that the whole thing may never reach coherence and forever remain the epistolary fragments I have before you, why not simply say that it is addressed, in its indecision and formlessness, WINDOW TO A SOUL, and get on with it 

Have we not always delighted ourselves and others with vagueness and misdirection? If this story is ever to be accepted, it will only be by those who are concerned with what is being offered through that window, or cannot be offered. . .