So many things that seemed crucial and excruciatingly hard ended and then didn't matter anymore, forever after

We come into the world whole, all of us, but we don't know that, don't know that life will be taking large chunks out of us, forever.

My mother was a single parent, a speech therapist who worked for a company that kept a substantial percentage of the income they billed for her to teach stroke victims in convalescent hospitals to talk again.

I unplug the phone and close the door and just stick with it. I don't ever go out for lunch and I don't take vacations. I like to be awake when no one else is: either just before dawn in the morning or late, late at night. Silence helps.

Sometimes, a stage curtain parts and you see: life could be better if you had more. Usually, I think, we can get just as good a different way. But tricks, they do not always work.

Once upon a time, my mother lived in the posh downtown of Homs, Syria. She described my grandfather as a king in a storybook, atop a horse, wearing a didashah and pointing a long arm.

So many things that seemed crucial and excruciatingly hard ended and then didn't matter anymore, forever after