Bruce Wagner - Memorial

The Friar repeated his routine until the lot was finally sold. From then on he no longer roamed, becoming closer to Cora in many ways than even her Princess, whom she still delighted in telling everyone that she loved “more than life.”

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Bombay/Mexico City/Los Angeles, 2006

Waters, you are the ones who bring us the life force. Help us to find nourishment so that we may look upon great joy.

Let us share in the most delicious sap that you have, as if you were loving mothers.

Let us go straight to the house of the one for whom you waters give us life and give us birth.

For our well-being let the goddesses be an aid to us, the waters be for us to drink. Let them cause well-being and health to flow over us.

Mistresses of all the things that are chosen, rulers over all peoples, the waters are the ones I beg for a cure.

Soma has told me that within the waters are all cures and Agni who is salutary to all.

Waters, yield your cure as an armor for my body, so that I may see the sun for a long time.

Waters, carry far away all of this that has gone bad in me, either what I have done in malicious deceit or whatever lie I have sworn to.

I have sought the waters today; we have joined with their sap. O Agni full of moisture, come and flood me with splendor.

— The Rig Veda

I was curious. I went for the first time and got addicted. I told my mom I wanted to work the sea and not the fields. And she let me go. She said, “It’s up to you now. If you want to go, go. I’ll be home praying that you have a prosperous future.”

And then I went to sea.

— A young boy, after the Christmas Tsunami

Bruce Wagner is the author of Force Majeure; I’m Losing You; I’ll Let You Go, which was a PEN USA fiction award finalist; Still Holding; and The Chrysanthemum Palace, which was a PEN Faulkner Award finalist. Two movies ( I’m Losing You and Women in Film ) adapted from his books have been shown at the Telluride, Toronto, Venice, and Sundance film festivals.