The Postscript

The cat prints and the poetry and the leaf print in the cement will not last 200 million years. But they will last longer than the poet who wrote the words or the cat who left the prints or the tree that dropped the leaf. And I think that is, somehow, wonderful.

It doesn’t seem like my dad’s way of looking at the world, it just seems like the way the world should be looked at—if I take the time to be thoughtful and don’t rush out and do something stupid.

I know for certain that strangers have helped me when I needed help, and kind words have changed my day from terrible to something better—something more hopeful.

I don’t think my mother ever expected to have a red squirrel as a pet. I know she resisted for a long time. But Stubby has changed her mind about at least one red squirrel, and I think that is kind of remarkable.

Songs tided me over. They gave voice to feelings that were either too powerful or too painful to experience in silence. Songs grounded me when I felt I might fly away or explode. Songs made sense of things, even if I couldn’t explain in words what I learned from them.        

My cousin Dane is the kind of guy who sits back in a room and listens to everyone trying to solve a problem and, after they’ve exhausted themselves trying to figure something out, he’ll say, “You know, what you might try is…” And whatever he suggests, it will be exactly the right thing to do.

It turns out that I love flowers far more than I knew. I love the shapes and the colors and the varieties and the seasons. I love how some will take over for a while, commanding attention, and then they fade and something new comes to the fore.

My mother reluctantly adopted Stubby after the tragic loss of half his tail last year. He went from her archenemy to her best friend, and now my mother feeds him every day. He has become quite tame and is clearly devoted to my mother and so, naturally, every time I chat with my mom, I ask how Stubby is doing. Apparently, Stubby got into some trouble.

It was midafternoon and not exactly our coffee and pastry hour. (Full disclosure: My husband, Peter, and I didn’t have a coffee and pastry hour, although this soon changed.) We cut one of those apple empanadas in half and tried it. And that was pretty much it.

Now he has more commissions and offers to show in galleries than he can accept. People love his work, and so does he. “It freed me, my partner leaving,” he said. “If he hadn’t done that, I would never have gotten to paint!”

As it turns to night, everyone naturally starts saying, “Buenas noches,” (“Good evening.”) This seems pretty straightforward, but determining when to stop saying “Good afternoon” and start saying “Good evening” is far more complicated than it seems.

I went to bed early with a stomachache and a cough and a sore throat and the feeling that I must have behaved very badly to get all these things at once

Who can blame these two unseen dogs for losing their little minds once a night—the most exciting time of the day—when Daddy finally gets home?

Maybe our marriage is peculiar; I am in no position to say. Maybe every marriage is peculiar in its own way.

If I now asked you to guess what was in the box, no matter how many guesses you were given, I’m betting you would be wrong.

I tell my parents I admire the life they have created for themselves. They have this great cabin, fun friends and neighbors, they bike all summer, ski all winter and, at the end of every day, they get an extra sunset.

While I’m certainly not wishing for the roof to fall in on anyone, I’m not sure it’s been such a bad thing.

My blessings are poorly disguised. They show up wearing false noses and funny eyeglasses and are instantly recognizable unless I am being completely thick-headed—and it is astonishing how often I am.

It turned out I’d been wasting a lot of good pear, but that stopped under Mrs. Johnson’s tutelage.

The rent was suspiciously cheap, but the reviews were all good except to say that the house was on a road with stairs. There is a good reason for this: the town predates wheels.

Somewhere near the middle of our vacation, usually just after we’d reached our destination, my birthday would arrive.

My parents, who buy little tiny blocks of cheese which they cut into little tiny slices and serve on little tiny crackers at precisely five o’clock every evening, were understandably taken aback by the arrival of twenty pounds of cheese.

I imagined I was sort of a golden retriever mix. I was a cool dog, a chill dog. I am actually nothing at all like this.

I used to take pride in traveling light. I fit all my clothes and everything I needed in a small backpack or a carry-on suitcase and hit the road with little idea of where I was going. Then I met Peter.

We might be starting from scratch, but we’ve got a head start. We might be trying something new, but we get credit for time served.