We knew it would be bad and yet we clung to stupid hope that it would somehow be okay, that someone would come to make it all better, and when no one came we did not know what to do but sit in the midst of our clinging.

At the supermarket I meet the gaze of a woman who could be my sister, my aunt, my long-lost best friend from high school. She looks like I feel, scattered and out of her depth at having to choose among so many jars of spaghetti sauce.

Four inches of fresh snow fell overnight, a batting against the thrum of impending catastrophe. Tidy pawprints across the front porch. The hollyberries  are vivid. When the plow comes through the sigh could be mistaken for relief.  

How long has it been since I last took a breath? And yet here is another,  still free for the taking.