Almost. It’s a big word for me. I feel it everywhere. Almost home. Almost happy. Almost changed. Almost, but not quite. Not yet. Soon, maybe. I’m hoping hard for that.

Everything's got a purpose, really - you just have to look for it. Cats are good at keeping old dogs alive. Loss helps you reach for gain. Death helps you celebrate life. War helps you work for peace. A flood makes you glad you're still standing. And a tall boy can stop the wind so a candle of hope can burn bright.

Mom put dense cheddar bread into a bag for a man who said this was his wife's favorite - he'd driven all the way from New Jersey to buy it because today was their anniversary. Several women in the store jabbed their husbands on hearing this. I hung my head - Peter Terris wouldn't cross the street to buy me a Twinkie.

Guys don't understand great art. They don't care that sometimes the camera has power beyond the photographer to record emotion that only the heart can see. They're threatened when the camera jumps ahead of me. Todd Kovich was pissed when I brought my Nikon to the prom, but I'd missed too many transcendent shots over the years to ever take a chance of missing one again. A prom, I told him, had a boundless supply of photogenic bozos who could be counted on to do something base.

Sometimes just getting up in the morning and standing at the gate can bring the gate down.

You cannot measure the loss of a human life. It's all the things a person was, all their dreams, all the people who loved them, all they hoped to be and could give back to the world.

We've got so much in this life that all we know how to do is want more. So we concentrate on the wrong things-things we can see-as being the measure of a person. We think if we win something big or buy something snazzy it'll make us more than we are. Our hearts know that's not true, but the eyes are powerful.