With you as my witness

One of the benefits of my COVID-induced isolation has been to slow my pace to a speed that allows me to observe rather than rush through my days (most days). There's little on my schedule, giving me margins for reflection unwittingly unavailable in the past. For that I am grateful. Here I am with an abundance of discretionary time, and I find it still takes a lot to manage just me each day. There are only two adults left in our home, and still, I'm a lot. And it's not because my memory is bad. It's because, like a petulant child, I have some simple things I cannot make myself do automatically, no matter how important they are . . .

Unconditional and fearless in impossible times

Not since elementary school's duck-and-cover drills have I felt such a sense of dread. Duck-and-cover was the public school program that prepared us all for an "atomic attack." It was a time in my young life when I learned about insomnia and chronic worry, usually in the dark of the night. Usually counting the decades and years left in my life. The Bogeyman was my night-time companion from his place in the far corner of the living room, which I could see through the hallway from my bed.