The Postscript

I was once told by a reliable source (my brother-in-law) that I must never get a fitness tracker because watching the numbers click up for every step I took would become a mad compulsion.

On a weekday, I was passing by the rectory. I didn’t know what a rectory was until I googled it and learned this was where the priests lived. A man in his thirties came out the door. He was not wearing a clerical collar, but I figured if he lived in the rectory, he would have to know what was going on. So I pounced.

We got the dock into the water. It was a little cattywampus, but it was more or less ready for another season. “I might need to get a kid to help me with some things this fall,” my dad said, as if this was a major concession at 92.

I remember the sweetness of Laura Ingalls Wilder describing Pa playing the fiddle by firelight in the middle of the Wisconsin woods, and I remember the horror of Hans Christian Anderson describing the house where the witch lived at the bottom of the sea, built with the bones of drowned sailors.

I have no idea how a goose landed on our balcony, 10 stories in the air. Landing on a narrow railing—even with a potted plant as a landing pad—demonstrates a kind of agility I honestly didn’t think geese were capable of.

In elementary school, I was never asked to jump rope. Jumping rope was popular when I was in elementary school, and I was not. I watched the girls jump and knew two things: I would never be asked, and I would be terrible at jumping rope if I were asked.

I think it’s important to celebrate the milestones in life. I don’t think a celebration needs to involve buying anything larger than a loon plush toy, or anything fancier than a plate of spaghetti with an old friend, but I think it’s important.

There is a principle in psychology which says that in order to slow time, you need more novel experiences. Childhood seems to last a long time because everything is new and everything is a first. As we age, we do more of the same things. This makes one day blend into the next, and one week into the one after that, and before we know it, ten years have passed without it seeming like any time at all.

I ran to the bathroom. “Put your head down!” But it was too late. Peter fell straight forward, like a falling tree. He hit the wall with his forehead, shattered the ceramic toilet paper holder, and knocked himself out. I am not great in emergencies, as it turns out.

I never thought much about how libraries work, probably because they work so well. No matter where I am, if I walk through the door of a library, I know more or less what to expect. The staff will be helpful. Everyone will be eager to answer any question I have. No one will be in too big a hurry to help. Everything will be pretty much as I remember it as an eight-year-old.