I spent the day traveling. Not because I intended to, but because that is what the day had in store for me. As I write this, I am sitting at the Fire Island ferry terminal, having left my house shortly before seven this morning. It is nearly six in the evening. In that span of time I have crossed Connecticut, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and perhaps a few emotional borders as well. When I left the house this morning, the day looked orderly on paper. Catch the 7:07 train. Pick up...

There is a particular kind of grief that arrives long before death. It does not announce itself with funerals or hospital rooms. It does not arrive carrying flowers or sympathy cards. Instead, it slips quietly into ordinary afternoons and settles itself among the dishes, the phone calls, the grocery lists, and the conversations we have had a thousand times before. It arrives when we notice our parents have changed. Not all at once, of course. Time is rarely that dramatic. The oak tree does...

There are days when I think I finally understand the mind. After all these years of watching it, studying it, wrestling with it, soothing it, and occasionally laughing at it, I think perhaps I have finally cornered the little rascal. I imagine I have caught it in the act and now understand its methods. Then it slips away again. The mind is clever that way. It changes costumes so often that we mistake it for reality. One moment it is fear. The next it is hurt. Then indignation. Then sadness....