Stella
painted the 31st of May, 1991
by Thomas Spanos

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Ah Stella, you were perhaps my favourite book of all. Stella was no one that I knew. She might have been the first name of a gracious English teacher that I was fond of in my boyhood. Stella was the name of a modest ballroom instructor I once studied under. Stella was the name of this book. I thought I could learn about myself by listening to what I had to say. So when I wrote of my daily experiences in these pages, I wrote as if writing to another person, Stella. In this way, I realized -- much to my own amazement --the passion I harboured for a woman whom aloud I only dared to admit was my friend. I learned that there were serious flaws in the way I conducted myself in certain instances. There was no hiding, for the topic of this book was myself. And I discovered that I hardly knew me!