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Sunbeams

Eating puts us in touch with all that we share with the other animals, and all that sets us apart.

Michael Pollan

Good Housekeeping

How could she tell her son that although she bathes, puts on clothes, laughs at Colbert, and has conversations with people, people don’t know. They don’t have a clue they’re talking to a bunch of scattered molecules trying to imitate a human being.

Evanescence

Everything new disappears, within and without. Alzheimer’s disease is eroding her hippocampus. . . . She has what the neurologist calls “rapid forgetting,” so she lives in a state of evanescence; nothing holds.

Bearing Pall

I didn’t know whether Grandpa knew that I knew. “My dad told me,” I said. “I’m sorry.” Grandpa got misty, then nodded and said, “He’d had enough.” To this day I believe this is the most empathetic way to understand suicide.

Culled

It was too quiet: no bellowing of elk, no call of owls. As I opened the front door, I could smell the beef stew I’d left simmering on the stove, but there was no music, and our dog Neva did not greet me.

Sometimes Things Just Don’t

We always went to Dancing Pins because it was cheap and we could spend all day there, easy, no complaints. We’d go when our mom was drunk and didn’t have anyone to sleep with. She brought her own vodka in a paper bag, like it wasn’t obvious.

Ocean City

I’d never been taught how to say no to an adult — nor even to consider the possibility that it might be necessary to do so.

My Thoughts Are Not My Thoughts

I have bipolar II disorder, which is characterized by rock-bottom lows interspersed with occasional bouts of manic hyperactivity. After some tweaking of my antidepressant cocktail, this maelstrom, too, will pass. I just have to lash myself to the mast and wait.