is how Prospero put the question to his daughter. Had he asked the question of Tom Waits, The Tempest would have been shorter. “You can’t really look in the mirror that much,” is how Waits answered when I put the question to him. We were driving around downtown Los Angeles, it was six or seven years after the crash, I was interviewing the singersongwriter for a magazine feature I was writing, and we were managing without the blank verse. Beyond the obvious needs of the piece I was reporting, I had no reason to argue with Waits. Revisiting the past can be dangerous if you invest the meeting with anything more than a polite handshake and a “Just passing through.” Lingering too long in the company of your memories, you run the risk of finding yourself stuck there. I had resisted calling Suzanne because intuitively I knew that once I did there would probably be no turning back. Making the decision I made when I picked up the phone is more than looking in the mirror. It’s like throwing yourself through the glass.
