a radio was on.

That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter. Rainer Maria Rilke My scans came back clean last week, so the way the math works for me is that I now feel like I have six months to live, at the least.  Because even if my scans come back unclean in three months, at the end of the summer, and even if the cancer mutates in a way which resists available treatment options, it would likely take at least another three months for us to figure all that out, for the cancer to have dominion over my body, which is its goal.  And so if I am honest about this, and I am trying so hard to look as much of this in the eye as I can, this means I have at least three more months of the relative good health I have right now, with the strength to walk to the bog with the dog several times a day, the ability to wander the sculpture gardens in Lincoln, as I did last week with Cameron, to accompan

That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter. Rainer Maria Rilke My scans came back clean last week, so the way the math works for me is that I now feel like I have six months to live, at the least.  Because even if my scans come back unclean in three months, at the end of the summer, and even if the cancer mutates in a way which resists available treatment options, it would likely take at least another three months for us to figure all that out, for the cancer to have dominion over my body, which is its goal.  And so if I am honest about this, and I am trying so hard to look as much of this in the eye as I can, this means I have at least three more months of the relative good health I have right now, with the strength to walk to the bog with the dog several times a day, the ability to wander the sculpture gardens in Lincoln, as I did last week with Cameron, to accom

I meant to tell all of you that a few weeks ago, when I read Asher and Elijah the Danish book about dying? Asher vociferously was against it. Not just that he did not like that book.  He was afraid of the actual book, which reminded me of fears I had about several actual books when I was growing up.  The book itself, because of the contents.  He asked me to take that book, with its open and loving story about death, and to take it out of our house that very night and to give it to our neighbor, who has a little girl their age. Maybe another child might want the book, he said, but he could not sleep with it our house. (I did not give it to our neighbor that night, but I did take it away and I told Ash I would take it out of the house.) It was all I could do not to weep at the great fear which sprang up in Asher but I was sure my crying would have made things even worse.  Asher would turn to Eli when I left their room and say, in his own way, boy, when mom started crying, I KNEW I was on

I meant to tell all of you that a few weeks ago, when I read Asher and Elijah the Danish book about dying? Asher vociferously was against it. Not just that he did not like that book.  He was afraid of the actual book, which reminded me of fears I had about several actual books when I was growing up.  The book itself, because of the contents.  He asked me to take that book, with its open and loving story about death, and to take it out of our house that very night and to give it to our neighbor, who has a little girl their age. Maybe another child might want the book, he said, but he could not sleep with it our house. (I did not give it to our neighbor that night, but I did take it away and I told Ash I would take it out of the house.) It was all I could do not to weep at the great fear which sprang up in Asher but I was sure my crying would have made things even worse.  Asher would turn to Eli when I left their room and say, in his own way, boy, when mom started crying, I KNEW I was o

I cherish Seamus Heaney's bog poems.  As you know, Heaney was fascinated with the story of the bog people.  One spring morning, two men cutting peat in a Danish bog discovered a well-preserved body of a man with a noose around his neck.  Thinking they had stumbled upon a murder victim, they reported their discovery to the police, who called in the famous archaeologist, the wonderfully named P.V. Glob, who identified the body as that of a two-thousand-year old man, ritually murdered and thrown into the bod as a sacrifice to the goddess of fertility.  Like Heaney, I love everything about this story.  The archaeologist's stories of the bodies, the careful descriptions of the ropes and blindfolds that are buried with our ancient Iron age compatriots, the fantastical preservation of the bodies in the deep tannic peat, preserving them, preserving the stories of their fates, of a time of hunger, and ritual, and pagan religion, which seems dark, and mystical and ancient, and the prosai

I cherish Seamus Heaney's bog poems.  As you know, Heaney was fascinated with the story of the bog people.  One spring morning, two men cutting peat in a Danish bog discovered a well-preserved body of a man with a noose around his neck.  Thinking they had stumbled upon a murder victim, they reported their discovery to the police, who called in the famous archaeologist, the wonderfully named P.V. Glob, who identified the body as that of a two-thousand-year old man, ritually murdered and thrown into the bod as a sacrifice to the goddess of fertility.  Like Heaney, I love everything about this story.  The archaeologist's stories of the bodies, the careful descriptions of the ropes and blindfolds that are buried with our ancient Iron age compatriots, the fantastical preservation of the bodies in the deep tannic peat, preserving them, preserving the stories of their fates, of a time of hunger, and ritual, and pagan religion, which seems dark, and mystical and ancient, and the prosa

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place. There was a fatal shooting in Jamaica Plain on Friday night, hours after Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner William Evans launched a new plan to increase positive interactions between the police and the community, an effort designed to address summer violence.  Christopher Joyce, who was 23 when he was shot, was about to graduate from Salem State University.  Clayborn Blair was 58-- an age I now aspire to reach--when he was shot; he had three children. They died at the Mildred C. Hailey housing complex in Jamaica Plain, and were what we like to call "innocent bystanders." Bystanders to gun violence in America, I suppose you could say.  Innocent of what? Of being the criminals.  Of being in the gang.  Of having a gun on their bodies.  So not deserving of being murdered.  Otherwise, the headlines would have said gang violence claims two.  And the larger community might grieve differently.  Not the mothers and fathers, though. 

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place. There was a fatal shooting in Jamaica Plain on Friday night, hours after Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner William Evans launched a new plan to increase positive interactions between the police and the community, an effort designed to address summer violence.  Christopher Joyce, who was 23 when he was shot, was about to graduate from Salem State University.  Clayborn Blair was 58-- an age I now aspire to reach--when he was shot; he had three children. They died at the Mildred C. Hailey housing complex in Jamaica Plain, and were what we like to call "innocent bystanders." Bystanders to gun violence in America, I suppose you could say.  Innocent of what? Of being the criminals.  Of being in the gang.  Of having a gun on their bodies.  So not deserving of being murdered.  Otherwise, the headlines would have said gang violence claims two.  And the larger community might grieve differently.  Not the mothers and fathers, though.