After I hung up the phone I cried.

I told Rick that with raising kids
if you have the same number at the
end as at the beginning
of the day that you were a good
parent.

After hanging up it hit me that there
were parents who lost a child this day
and I felt heartless for what I said.

Appreciate the redundancy.

Dr: Baxter to Dr. Barouch : "Which eye?"
Dr. Barouch to Dr. Baxter: "Left."
Dr. Baxter to me: "Which eye?"
me to Dr. Baxter: "Left."
Dr. Baxter to me: "Point to the eye you mean."
I point.
Dr. Baxter to me: "I am going to draw a dot over that eye. Now take a deep breath."

Where the me meets the not me

It is not a hard boundary,
a solid line,
where I do not cross.
It is a gradual foam of
atomic and sub atomic
interactions where I am neither
completely stopped or started.

Birthday gifts.

The ability to stand and go take a walk in the late fall sunshine.
The ability to put my shoulder of the figurative wheel of work
and to imagine what that work might be.
The enjoyment of amazing cauliflower crust pizza,
greens recently harvested from the very Earth itself
and a slice of Lembas with my lunch.
Discussing if dogs are starter children and joking whether I will ever
get fucked in my fifties.
Most precious of all is time spent with people for whom I care deeply
and who also care deeply for me.