There is a picture I can see in my mind. I am in a wheelchair, and two men are walking with me. Well, one is pushing my chair, and the other is walking. We are viewing panels from the AIDS quilt, a memorial to the victims of the disease in those first years, when survival was so variable and so little was known–and so much was feared. One of the men is Ben Barr. The quilt panels are laid out on a gymnasium-type floor–I can see that much in my mind. As we move solemnly among the panels, Ben is telling me “It took a lot of work to organize this. Then at the last minute they wanted to change the dates that it would come to Salt Lake. It’s the first time the quilt has traveled.” In the scene in my mind, I am very passive, even mindless, that meditative “zen mind, no mind,” instead of the everyday anger at everything/everyone around me.

I felt honored. I had let the three-person writing group that got the grant that kept the Salt Lake Aids Coalition going. It seemed to me that the