I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.

The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.

You can love someone so much...But you can never love people as much as you can miss them.

That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.

One swing set, well worn but structurally sound, seeks new home. Make memories with your kid or kids so that someday he or she or they will look into the backyard and feel the ache of sentimentality as desperately as I did this afternoon. It's all fragile and fleeting, dear reader, but with this swing set, your child(ren) will be introduced to the ups and downs of human life gently and safely, and may also learn the most important lesson of all: No matter how hard you kick, no matter how high you get, you can't go all the way around.

Long week. Long month. Long life.

The whole thing was the precise opposite of what I figured it would be: slow and patient and quiet and neither particularly painful nor particularly ecstatic