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Some things people say turn out to be true.

Forty years ago, my friend shouted out to me from her office, “Don’t you think we’ll know each other forever?”

It was said like confetti, a joyful thought thrown into the air, and it rained down on me like luck itself. I was a single parent, a graduate student, struggling with money, struggling with academics, wearing my turtleneck sweaters and acting the part. I didn’t have friends. I had problems as friends.

“Don’t you think we’ll know each other forever?” That seemed unlikely, improbable. She was smarter, at ease, good at things, good at laughing and making people comfortable. She was at home in her own skin; I wanted to leave mine on the coat rack by the door and become someone else. Maybe her.

Sometimes, later in my life, when I had to do scary things like talk in front…

September Mondays are tricky and lovely at the same time. There’s something about their fleetingness that makes them precious, like if you died this very second with the sun shining, the wind blowing and the waves up, you’d be fine with that. It’s all theoretical, of course. We’re never fine with it. Dying.

So walking on the beach, a list came to me.

1. I’ve never had 100% of my four kids be fine at once. So since that’s never happened, it’s going to cease being a hope of mine.
2. I have one grandchild who tells me she doesn’t like being outside. This is astonishing and distressing to me in a thousand ways since I think being outside a lot is a big deal and fundamental for healthy living. I look at her pale face and big brown eyes like she is a  mushroom growing in the cellar. How could such…

Last night, a drunk driver crashed into my friend’s parked car, pushing it across the grass to rest against her neighbor’s stone porch. Minutes before the crash, my friend’s daughter and grandson had been in the space obliterated by the drunk driver but they’d driven away before he turned the corner. They were all fine. The car was dead and the driver was arrested but everyone else was fine.

But it just goes to show what I’ve known for a long time.

Anything can happen.

I just put that out there for folks who think the world spins on an “If/Then” axis.

Chief among such folks would be parents who convince themselves from baby’s first cry that the end result of all their incredible effort will be a flawless child and then a perfect adult. This might be true if a drunk driver doesn’t come zooming around the corner.

Linear…