It’s today and it’s morning. That’s generic for not knowing if it’s Monday or Tuesday or March or May. But I can see it’s morning, so I check my desk again for the checkbook that went missing last week.

One form asks for name, address, phone, emergency contact, whether you would want to be revived, and how you heard about them.

One form asks for insurance, your living will, and if you’d like a tote bag.

One includes the care agreement, the do-not-resuscitate form, and a coupon for the salon.

Then it’s time for lunch. One man at my table today talks about coronary arteries. Someone else says, Better to get a full scan now than an autopsy later. They should be at table 8, the one for Organ Recital, which I also call Condition Rendition.

Next, it’s back to the many-layered desk. I don’t like putting things where they belong, but I do like finding them. Maybe if I could put stuff where it “belongs” or is supposed to belong, I could find my checkbook and my cheekbones, which went missing, too.

Some stuff is sliding off the desk waiting for the moment when it will reach its tipping point or we’ll have an earthquake.

Then it’s night, followed by morning, which means I press a button to prove I’m alive. As in, survived the night. Two of my most favorite things occur each morning. The very best is I wake up. The second best is making tea.

We don’t tend to get earthquakes in Virginia,

but a while back, we had one anyway.

Stray papers plunged off mantels,

Dove off desks,

Slammed on floors.

Perhaps my checkbook, submerged in rubble, survived a crash-course in tectonic plates, politely emerging from where it had tumbled, but then suffered PTSD — post-tectonic stress disorder — and felt the need to withdraw.

Then we had a tornado. Which proves more or less anything can happen at any time. Just look at the news. After dinner, I sort through hospice forms. The packet includes warning signs, who to call, what happens after, and a short survey to rate your experience. Which might be impossible. Depends on what “after” meant.

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Something broke in my head and took away the names of things. It was like someone pressed the wrong button. The one that Uninstalls Self.

A scruffy green angel was looking upside down at me. My dog Zeke was also floating overhead. He knew ten English words and loved biscuits shaped like bones.

I couldn’t say things like, Please help, I am thirsty. Please help, my feet are cold. Please help, my lips are dry. I could just point to my head.

Someone in scrubs told me to say the name of my mother, then to say the name of my father, then to say my address. I pointed to my head.

Someone else in scrubs handed me a puzzle. There was something wrong with the puzzle or there was something wrong with my head.

I had a daughter. She had a mommy. Once upon a time, her hand sought mine.

I was parked in a room with six people who were there and six people who weren’t there, too. The people who weren’t there were the people we used to be. There was a former physician, who treated people like us before she became one of us. I was a version of the person who wrote words before the truck.

Health insurance did not/does not cover Motor Vehicle Accidents. We lost our home. I was shipped nine hours south. Shipped happens.

In the Not-Old-Folks-Home where I live now, the dishwasher’s making the noise again, the gutter’s loose, the results came back, they will replace the doorknob I can’t turn anymore. The ice maker’s doing fine.

Pre-truck, I wrote about places I didn’t go, and things I didn’t do, for legends and icons I didn’t know. That was called being a ghost. It means you sweep what needs to be swept and keep what needs to be kept in just the right number of seconds and words.

I learned to read at age 56. I mean relearned. That’s why I can now read instructions like:

Fragile.
Store in dry area.
Contents may settle.
Keep upright.
Do not stack.

Not returnable.
This end up.
Handle with care.
Discard after date shown.

All instructions may also apply to residents here.

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When it was built, in 1895, it was called Avalon, which meant Paradise.

Landscaping? You’re kidding, right? No tenderness or plan at all. There was no garden. Anything growing was fierce enough to push through the rocks and plant itself. Sort of like me.

Then there was an accident. A truck crushed a car. I was in the car.

I was shipped nine hours south and Avalon? It was sold to pay the bills.

Images flickered faster than I could comprehend them, faster than I could name them, way too fast to contain or connect them. I wasn’t speaking well and I couldn’t read. I also created a Three-Step Program, which had two steps,

And yet — I decided to write a book. I told myself, You start. You start again. A noun. A verb. A swerve. A curve. One step in front of the other, one day at a time. My mantra became: Write like your brain works.

As a child, I didn’t belong anywhere with anyone, except in my room with my cat. Like I was renting a room as a six-year-old. I drew thousands of pictures of families.

Decades later, I was still a maker of pictures that didn’t include me. A teller of stories that didn’t include me. Even a stellar teller at times. That was called freelance writing.

Then the truck. I lost a piece of my mind, rather countless pieces smaller than microbes but not as useful for gut health.

Now I live in an old age home, which isn’t called an old age home. A sprawling, very faux chateau. At one table, someone consulted for the U.S. Navy. Someone consulted for NASA. Someone worked with a Devil Wears Prada. The third one was me. Someone owned a bank or two. I forget who. It wasn’t me.

You know how things combine — for example, like daylight and savings? Or — when seasons change — flipflops and flannel? This place combines residents and replacements. We have 530 residents and a waiting list of 1540+ future residents putting down big bucks, then waiting to live where we live now. Keyword: live.

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The former professor of commerce says, Something must have changed in my algorithm. Here’s how I know. For years, every time I went online, I was besieged by how to achieve longevity. Then — it was ads for cremation and urns and burial sites.

It’s 9:04 in the morning. Stay tuned for traffic and weather and news. Plus helpful hints like how to get sane, how to stay sane, or how to approximate sanity.

It’s 9:06. Stay tuned to see if you have early-onset something or early-onset something else.

It’s 9:08. Stay tuned to see if you have late-stage who-knows-what, or late-stage I forget.

It’s 9:10. Fig is the new vanilla. Thinking of the hereafter? Then, as they say, walk into any room and wonder what you’re here after.

When I was a kid, I wanted my mom to wake me up gently. Instead, she stood at the door and said, “Get up.” Then hurried to her job. Her job was sick kids in a hospital. She said they needed her. I needed her, too.

My mom and dad likely had worse problems than I did when they were kids. Also as kids, they never saw meadows or forests or beaches or ocean. I want my mom back.

Everything expires, we just don’t know when. Will your ears give out before you do? Will your eyes give out before your ears? Will your feet give out first, or your 401(k)? Why do we lose fat under our feet where we need it, and gain it where we don’t? Your feet hurt like hell, and your pants don’t fit.

Speaking of feet, my mom nominated herself for the “first foot transplant,” though she didn’t tend to be funny or to complain.

To build a Continuing Care Retirement Community — now known as a Life Plan Community in our neck of the no-longer-woods — you destroy acres of trees and call the denuded remains “Woodlands.”

Or Woodlands at Hilltop, if you level everything, then add a tiny hill.

Or Forest Springs. No forest, no springs.

Or Seaside Chateau. No sea. No chateau.

Or Oceanview. In Omaha.

Use words like manor, estates, or villas and you can double the fee. People come for the view. Or the thought of the view. To convert the prior name to Life Plan Community, delete Care. Rather, delete both: Continuing and Care. This converts the contract, too.

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She is the only person in recorded history to be hit by space debris. She took it to the library. The library told her to take it to the astronomy club. She did. They didn’t want it. I get it. That’s sort of like playing “fetch” when a human doesn’t. I mean doesn’t throw it back.

The same rocket also dropped a 551-pound propellant tank a few yards from a farmhouse in Georgetown, Texas. I see trash all the time because my nose often points down. When space trash hit a town in Australia, the tiny town fined NASA for littering. The town is very small. NASA is very big.

Then a piece of the International Space Station slammed through the roof of a home in Naples, Florida, and nearly struck a young boy. Here, at the Not-Old-Folks-Home, pieces sometimes fly off the roof. Once or twice they almost hit J and me. They plan to fix this in a few years. Seems a bit slow.

Speaking of slow, there’s a huge patch of dirt below J’s place, which, of course, is my place, too. It used to be a huge mound, then became a huge patch after something noisy flattened it. Then it stayed in lieu of a view. For three years.

They’re now planning to plant it. In 2031. Five years from now. There’s a new and updated “Strategic Plan,” one of many plans, it seems — proposed, promoted, postponed. Plans are big around here. Promises, too. Kept or not.

Everything dies. J told me that. That’s sad. I’m into life. Also toys and treats. I have a weird thing on my foot, and the vet told J to put medicine on it and then put a sock on it. So she does. Then I take it off. First I snap the dog-proof strap, then I strip off the sock. Even though the package proclaims that’s impossible.

Other species don’t start wars, break promises, or make Strategic Plans. The vet said the sore needs a “procedure” soon. Not a Strategic Plan.

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My friend Lou is very ill. I ask if she feels afraid.

She says that would depend on when I ask.

Then I visit my friend Del in Memory Care. We are petri dishes un-growing human cultures.

Live long enough and you’ve been some combination of: instrumental, detrimental, sentimental, ornamental, alarming, disarming, furious, curious, precocious, ferocious, ready, steady, regretful, forgetful, thoughtful, awful, artful, frightful, sunny, fun.

Then dimmed. First, some things take place dimly. Then all things take place dimly.

Frank Ostaseski, the Buddhist hospice teacher, says in Japanese Zen the term shoji translates as “birth-death.” Just one small hyphen in between. I’d say that hyphen is huge. I’d say it’s not a hyphen.

I freelanced for the Hallmark Channel. You know, movies in which a woman in stilettos steps in the muddy fields of authenticity and falls headfirst into the well-lit, well-muscled arms of the perfect guy for her.

Hallmark movies and nearly every drama or sitcom always have a couple like that. Perhaps scripted by a bot. When I was a freelance writer, we wrote everything ourselves.

Now? If I were an airport, I’d always have too few runways for too many planes. And no well-lit handsome arms. I haven’t been held in years, except when I’m put on hold.

Some people think I’m more screwed up than I seem. Some think I’m less screwed up, instead. The truth varies and is determined by number of planes.

Good writing occurs when the writer removes everything else. Sometimes I can.

If my brain had a recorded announcement, the announcement would vary between:

*We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. Normal was 2006.
*Storage almost full. Would you like to upgrade your storage?

*Overextended. Overcommitted. Overdue. Overwhelmed. Data limit reached. Speeds may be reduced.

My friend Kate says she’s about to bolt like that Scandinavian centenarian. Climb out the window and see the world. She means the 100-year-old-man in a book called I-forget-what. That’s what I call all books now.

Tommie says they say youth is wasted on the young. She adds she spilled every last drop of youth. Then somehow recouped and spilled them again.

Apps for dying let you share your final wishes and other important stuff with your nearest and dearest in case they’re not real near.

The former professor of physics says, Or not real dear.

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I am with my friend Willa in Catered Care at the Not-Old-Folks-Home.

She no longer speaks. She writes notes like this:

Once life seemed long and tall like a tower. Now it seems small like a dot.

Then I’m with Del in Vista Care. Which means memory – or really, lack of memory — care. On a good day, she remembers me. This isn’t a good day.

Stars look dim and distant and so do her eyes.

Willa writes another note. It says:

Life is a collection of things that cannot be undone and a collection of other things that can’t be done.

Our friend Ron was a minister. Now he can’t recall who-begot-whom.

My friend Tommie says he makes a blessed mess wherever he goes.

Gail says at least it’s blessed.

Tommie describes a martini so strong, “It tastes like being thrown through a window. Or something like that.” I had to put that in quotes.

The former philosophy professor says that description is close enough.

Kate says someone’s father played the guitar like “a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972.”

Del is being tested. Endlessly. The testers keep getting annoyed. For example, they ask her to count backwards from 100 backwards by 7 and she will say 193.

Then they will give an example like “100, 93, 86,” but she’ll be looking out the window toward birds and sky.

She prefers birds to counting backwards. So do I.

They are testing “comprehension,” “verbal identification,” “ideation,” and “labelling” and she is not doing well.

Kate says you can kicked out of hospice for not dying on time.

The former writer thinks of bots planning celebrations you would like if only you were alive. Then she thinks, but doesn’t say, an attempt to control if you will be remembered and, too, precisely how.

She says, Words work hard. They raise marks and kids and sales and brows and skirts and standards.

The former professor of physics says drily, Speaking of sales, you get $50 off when you spend half a million or more. He continues, One site sports this headline:

WHAT FUNERAL DIRECTORS & CELEBRANTS CAN LEARN FROM PIZZA DELIVERY APPS

Evidently, funeral companies are no longer funeral companies. They are tech companies that deliver funerals.

The former writer thinks but doesn’t say, Words come in a pinch, a jam, a nutshell, a mad rush, a month of Sundays, a eulogy. Tragic and transcendent, too.

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On the website of Forest Lakes, each picture looks like a page in a luxe coffee-table book. I imagine marketing for every High-End aging place takes a page from the same book. But they don’t mention this.

It feels like an intricate, opulent rug might be pulled out from underneath anyone at just about any time. It might. There are paddles everywhere to apply to someone’s chest.

Imagine 530 residents, in varying degrees of health at our Not-Old-Age-Home. Residents include a few teachers, a few preachers, a few CEOs, and of course, the Friday Former Professors Club, which meets any time and anywhere two or more formers meet. We’re all former somethings here.

Me? I write stuff I can’t read. Or can read, but can’t recall. That floor also drops. I listen to books. But what I remember is shredded, wispy, debatable. One shred or wisp reconstitutes into more shreds and wisps. Then into wispy mini mixtapes.

Which I can’t get back the old-fashioned ways. By naming them and filing them and finding the file. But I am lucky, and I know it. So is my friend, Sheila T. She tells me so each time we meet.

Sheila is 97 and tells many great stories. Some of them, I know by heart. I love that, too. Knowing them by heart. There’s lots to love. For example, her story about the corsage on her wedding day, and about the British baker who won a prize in Brussels. “If you’re British and your cake wins a prize in Brussels, that cake was very good.”

Sheila was 10 years old and living in London when World War II began. She describes two times she came very close to being killed in London, and one time in Lebanon.

She also describes making maps of the Fertile Crescent, “The Tigris and Euphrates,” and great meals in Milan, great views in Lausanne, the finger food on her wedding day. All under the rubric, “luck” and all said with sparkling eyes.

Sheila serves on the Finance Committee, and reminds me that for actuaries expected she’d drop by year twelve. She laughs with a sly look in her eye, and says she’s now in year fifteen. She knows a few other people here — her age or older — who have way exceeded year 12 and are also doing well.

Sheila smiles, and puts two thumbs up for them.

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On the website of Forest Lakes, each picture looks like a page in a luxe coffee-table book. I imagine marketing for every High-End aging place takes a page from the same book. How “high” is debatable. “End” is not.

It feels like an intricate, opulent rug might be pulled out from underneath anyone at just about any time. It might. There are paddles everywhere to apply to someone’s chest.

My friend Del, who was a psychiatrist until a massive stroke, can only half-concentrate on what anyone is saying. Language, once reliable, findable, billable – and in sound structural condition – sputtered, spattered, shot to hell.

This means things she knew before are things she doesn’t know now. Ditto, things she could say. They’re gone, too. There’s no language for this kind of loss because part of the loss is the loss of words. The same thing happened to me.

If I were to write A Short History of Everything I Recall, it would be just slightly longer than A Short History of Everything I Can’t Recall. Each would depend on available words. I contemplate other potential titles, like A Short History of Nothing and/or A Short History of Nearly Nothing.

The former radio astronomer has heard black holes colliding and seen them stare like smoke rings from the hearts of galaxies. He could write A Long History of the Universe. He still has all his words.

Others have all their original organs. Think kidneys and hearts. All their original knees, shoulders, hips. Someone loses a hip each week, then gains a new one.

The state of Connecticut has a regulation requiring — if you advertise something as "guaranteed for life” — that you disclose whose life you mean.

For example, is a carburetor guaranteed for the life of your car, or the length of your life. Or perhaps the life of your words.

Clarity is important. A brochure for hospice says, HEARING IS THOUGHT TO BE THE LAST SENSE TO GO. YOU MAY CONTINUE TO SPEAK. This seems to mean you may speak to your loved one as long as you like.

Language is remarkable. For instance, though it includes a nursing home, this is not an Old Folks Home. However, if and when a resident leaves a nursing home alive, that is called elopement.

On the bulletin board at the vet, I see this headline: INDIVIDUAL OR COMMUNAL CREMATION? If and when someone is folding a stroller, they must remove child first. Same with a wheelchair.

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Things happen and then are forgotten as if they hadn’t happened.

Or they are scribbled on scraps, then forgotten, as if they hadn’t been scribbled on scraps.

Sometimes tiny things drop in. Sometimes they drop out. Same with large things.

Humans have no natural predators, except, it seems, each other — at times. But here at Forest Lakes, we’re kinder, gentler, older. We speak in complete sentences fairly often and don’t always hold a screen in our hands.

A former preacher, a former professor and a former aristocrat walk into a bar. This is not the set up to a joke. It’s a frequent event at Forest Lakes, our not-Old-Age-Home.

A psycholinguist, an ethnomusicologist, and a self-proclaimed genius, walk into a bar. This happens every day. Only the self-proclaimed genius changes, since we have many here.

We have an expert on moths whose most prized specimen fell into his drink. He dried and mounted it. We also have a lichenologist. She studies moss. Moths and moss. Go figure.

A few of my friends live each day like it could be their last. And thank God, that’s been wrong so far.

My friend G has gotten worse. She can’t hold anything in her hands or her mind. I bring her to the Old Age Clinic which is not called the Old Age Clinic.

We head to the dining center of excellence. Well, not quite, but it is where we eat. We see Mr. Scared D. Pants. He’s a resident who does not light up a room.

Later, my friend Tommie says, Given the decision between spending an evening with him and getting a Pap smear, bring on the paper gown. The cute kind, please.

There are two marketing associates selling three types of residences which are called forever homes. The first level is Stellar. Stellar means basic. Like Grande means small at Starbucks.

The top tier is for people who keep most of their assets offshore.

The website shows lots of pics of fancy celebrations, like they happen every day. The kind with scallops wrapped in bacon, or shrimp wrapped in bacon, on endless artful platters served with endless wine. Also people having a great time playing tennis and pickleball on courts not located here.

If we have a suggestion or concern, we can email Town Hall. We all get the same reply, which is “Thank you for writing to Town Hall.” That’s it. Not a word more than that.

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People want to know what they’re going to get and nothing tells them that more quickly than numbers in headlines. Like 5 rules. Not just any number, though, the magic numbers.

3 is a magic number. It is better to have 3 rules than 2 or 4. 5 is a magic number. 7 is lucky. 6, 8, and 9 are unlucky. If you have 6 tips, add 1 or delete. Ditto, if you have 8. 10 is excellent, above, 10, everything is worthless until you hit 25, 50, 99, 100, and a 1001.

Folks love “how to” headlines, too. How to write a novel in 30 days or your 30 days back. How to lose weight fast and keep it off or you can kill me. How to place your bottom in the top 1% of all bottoms anywhere. At least, according to a writer for Vanity Fair.

You can also learn:

How to pit your avocado

How to make friends with reality

How to stop email you shouldn’t have sent

When I began in media, we didn’t have kids’ books with titles like:

*Garfield Gets Feline Leukemia. *Grandpa Gets a Casket *You Were an Accident *Places Where Mommy and Daddy Hide Things They Don’t Want You To See *Daddy Drinks Because You Cry

Fortunately, we still don’t have kids’ books with titles like that.

Sometimes I invent headlines. Like these:

Storms are changing climate’s opinion.

Climate is changing storms’ opinion

Secretive North Korean leader Kim Jong Un either had or didn’t have a secret heart procedure and is very sick, very dead, or very fine.

In other news, a fleet of UFOs has recently been certified as real by the Pentagon, which shared recent footage of sightings it cited as “numerous.” Sort of like Elon Musk’s kids. Which number fifteen with six moms, and counting. Or sixteen with seven moms.

Fyi, although most of us call extraterrestrial vehicles “Unidentified Flying Objects,” the Navy calls them Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, as that is the name occupants use on their tax returns. Maybe.

Where I live now, residents pay a lot to get in and keep paying a lot ‘til death do us part and we’re replaced. In fact, a waiting list of 900+ waits to replace us as soon as we drop. It’s a coming of old age tale that takes place at Forest Lakes, which is located on a faux-posh archipelago with a somewhat haute aesthetic at a somewhat artful remove from the warring world. Boasting both but hosting neither forest nor lake.

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The former writer remembers something. She remembers an enormous rococo sofa dominating a stage. She just doesn’t recall the stage or the place or the play or the plot.

She also remembers great artworks jostling for space on the walls. But which great artworks and which walls?

She also remembers the phrase, “Someone is the best of a bunch.” But which bunch? Which someone?

The former writer remembers some things were more than the sum of their parts. And some things were less than the sum of their parts. But not which somethings.

We now have a resident mushroomist. She says, After more than a decade underground, some cicadas break the surface, molt, and start singing.

So do we. More or less.

The mushroomist adds, But a fungus infects some cicadas — and renders them, chemically speaking, out of their minds.

Sounds like some of us, too.

Imagine your mind as a museum of cellular memories gathered through millennia. An archive of time, space and species. In an instant, shelves bite the dust. No, they become dust. This is called brain injury.

The former professor of theater says, Perhaps we should distill our terrestrial anxieties into a pop parable, to mirror the mood on Earth.

The former professor of radio astronomy says, Perhaps we should not.

The former professor of something else says, Sometimes the distill is gone — and this may be one of those times.

The former professor of physics says, Some kind of message seems to be coming across the emptiness of space and along kinks in the fabric of time. It sounds like a dishwasher. It may offer a twinkle of hope. Yes, I can hear it now.

The former professor of radio astronomy says with skepticism, You hear a dishwasher in space?

The former physics professor calls this a cosmic perspective.

The former philosophy professor calls it a comic perspective.

The former professor of drama says, Something or someone near Saturn is sending data that may save us if we decode it fast enough. Yup, sounds like a dishwasher.

The former professor of film says, Enter actor Jodie Foster and a team that gets its geek on fast.

The mushroomist says the largest living thing on Earth is invisible. It’s a fungi that glows in the dark, spreads — without being seen — over 2,000 acres, and shares half its DNA with us.

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We’re on a secret NASA mission. So secret it’s disclosed on this stack. We see tiny figures bouncing around in the distance. They are scientists. Astronauts. No, they’re movie stars.

What could possibly go wrong? Quite a bit. For starters, straps connecting the astronauts to their spacecraft are severed so — in seconds — they’re not connected to anything at all. Been there. Done that.

This brings us to Polynesian way finders, who are about as un-Hollywood as you can get. They are ancient master navigators of what we now call Polynesia and Australia.

They ongoingly crossed the Pacific Ocean using instrument-free techniques — reading stars, ocean swells, cloud formations and flight paths of birds. They knew they were nearing land when they noted changes in the color of water. And in its phosphorescence, too.

There are many politically correct terms for stealing countries and continents, such as “colonized peacefully,” or “occupied” as if the land were not already loved and lived on before it was plundered. The truth is explorers credited with discovering the worlds often destroyed the worlds they discovered. And the people who lived there for thousands of years.

This brings us to blowing smoke. Given the recent proliferation of forest fires, it’s no longer a question of whether there will be smoke in the air, just which way the wind will blow.

I’m an ocean. I’m a desert. I’m a drought. I’m a tidal wave. I’m a shuffle. I’m a shuttle. I’m a sprint. I’m an unexpected curve ball. No, I’m the curve. I’m the ball. Then I’m having trouble breathing. Racing, bracing, spacing out. Knowing nothing when the floor falls out. As it now tends to do.

How does one stay more or less healthy? You know how some docs prescribe “Take two before breakfast” or something like that. Well, my prescription for myself might be, “Write before breakfast.” The frame, the corners, the curves. The second prescription might be, “Write before lunch and before dinner.” The frame, the corner, the curves, again. And so I do.

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I am here today because J invited me. She is my human and this is her stack. She brought me home from what she called “the pound” on April 23, 2018. More than eight years ago.

The vets there said I seemed to be 2 or 3 years old at that time, which would make me 10 or 11 now. They also said my hips were very bad so even people who liked me decided not to adopt me. But that’s not the point. The point is April 23. J says that was William Shakespeare’s birthday. So she named me Wilby, as in Will B. Shakespeare.

Now she mostly calls me Will. I haven’t written much, but I do think about the world and I have learned to read. The other day I read about the oldest shipwreck ever discovered. It went down about 4,000 years ago and contained amber beads, ebony, almonds, figs, cumin, chisels, daggers, razors, gold. Plus pomegranates.

Pomegranates are pretty.

Sometimes I read about outer space. I’m into smells. But not into how outer space smells, which is like a mix of gunpowder and barbecue. I’d like the barbecue, of course, but given that mix, I’d way rather stay here. On earth with J.

I like stars. Sometimes I watch them with her. When stars explode or die, new elements are forged, including the calcium that makes up our bones and the oxygen that we breathe. I’m really into bones.

A long time ago, my human got hurt. Before that, she was everywhere at once, writing stuff that went to millions of people all over the world. Then she was stifled and silent. Her knees forgot how to be knees and her hands forgot how to be hands.

Humans confuse me. Other living things don’t tell lies, start wars, screw up the planet or drive drunk. That is what happened to J. Someone got drunk, stole a truck, and crushed a parked car. J was in the car.

She relearned how to see, how to hear, how to walk, how to talk, how to read, how to write, how to operate a fork. Then she forgot and learned again. I think she did better when I stayed close. Plus it’s my favorite thing to do — staying close to her.

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In my first life, I parked one word next to the other and they stayed where I put them. Like bridges or roads. Then there were lots of green people. I mean there were lots of people wearing green scrubs. This was called a hospital.

From where I floated, near the ceiling, I saw someone on a gurney with my name on her wrist. Below, the green people were lurching and slumping, searching scans and screens, while checking off boxes. Boxes seemed to signify bills.

They were rubbing their eyes and tugging their scrubs, like they were on the third day of a twelve-hour shift or on the fourteenth day of a ten-day rotation. Also green around the gills. Not like an ad for medical school.

Sort of like the Trojan War. Or wars in general. Mostly not like ads for war. Which returns us to Odysseus, who was missing in action for two decades, having gone astray in the Trojan War, a few thousand years ago, and become amnesic. Brain injured perhaps. Somewhat like me.

His absence has been tough on his family — his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), and their adult son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), of Spider-Man fame. This puts less emphasis on the supermale-superhero and more on his family than typical. Perhaps. But what is typical?

Do you know what olfaction means? Neither did I. It means that when you inhale the fragrance of a flower, you are inhaling some of its atoms. They become part of you. But back to show business. I don’t want each sword, spear and arrow onscreen or elsewhere to become part of me. Been there, done that.

Meanwhile, the world disintegrates in real time. So do many patients. That’s why we’re here. To disintegrate or depart. To another world, feet first, or to another place when we’re as good as we can get.

And on my screen? The flood museum is closed due to flooding — that’s not a joke about parallel worlds, that’s a world documenting its own demise. Plus twenty-eight cities sinking, each at its own rate. Like old people. And a five-year-old in a bunny hat has been arrested and detained with his dad. With a Spider-Man backpack. Blue.

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Someone is reporting facts. The flatness in his voice is how he keeps from breaking. He says one thing at a time, then pauses to breathe.

He reports on weather and whether. Whether they’ll have weather on the planet where he lives.

Or he reports from the past on the past. This isn’t clear to me. He reports over many years or in seconds. This, too, isn’t clear.

At good times, he reports: Sunset, good, becoming golden. Or he says:

Slide your chair a few inches west and watch.

At even better times, he reports: Hope. Gusting.

At bad times, he says: Visibility, essential but getting worse.

On medium days, he says: Rations, eight days, revised down.

Sometimes he says: Rotation accelerates. Now every 60 seconds. Sunrise. Sunset. Sunrise. Sunset.

Record so far: forty-four in one sitting.

His name is The Little Prince.

Day and night collapse. Any day is done in seconds. So is any night. His voice stays calm.

Days get quicker. So do nights.

His voice gets raspy. He starts saying: Air and breath. Air and breath.

His colleague arrives. Her name is Rose. She’s the only rose on his planet.

She reports: The desert is beautiful because it hides a well somewhere. Water. Water.

She adds: Nothing precipitates. Nothing grows.

Then, barely breathing, she reports again: Four thorns deployed against projected front of tigers (none sighted, doesn’t matter). Please. Need glass dome. God. Now.

The Little Prince says, Can kill us. Or spare us.

Then he says: Do not plant a field of roses. You cannot love a field. You can love one.

Rose says, Water, water. Then says no more.

Absence. Full absence, no cover.

Then same. Then shame.

Somewhere up there a small bell rings. Or doesn’t.

Seconds strand.

Strand, don’t stack.

Then break and strand.

Then just break.

The Little Prince, barely breathing, says: Forecast: Dizzy. Loyal. Unbearable.

Visibility: One thousand miles of nothing.

Ten miles.

Imminent.

Air and breath. Air and breath.

Air and breath.

Don’t come out to watch.

Once I worked for a famous man.

John F. Kennedy, Jr.

He got around Manhattan on a beat-up bicycle

Wearing beat-up clothes so no one would notice him.

He dressed as a messenger, went in and out the Freight Entrance.

Chose to not look like a star.

He died in his plane

With his wife and her sister.

Instruments dissolved.

So did time and space and life.

This was a big hit on Netflix.

I couldn’t bear to watch.

Filed from: location withheld.

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An extravagant meal was fish and chips, dowsed with vinegar and wrapped in yesterday’s news. Rather, yesterday’s newspaper.

I also ate Buddha’s Delight at the cheapest Chinese restaurant in town. It sold bags of broken fortune cookies that were tagged: “Cracked Cookies, Same Fortune.” Their Moo Shoe beef (they meant Moo Shoo) tasted like shoes. So did the Moo Shoe Pork.

Sometimes I splurged on the second cheapest Chinese restaurant. It had a dumb waiter, which was a contraption, not a person, a hand-pulled “elevator” large enough for one tray piled with plates. The tray was hauled from deep in the basement where food was made, to the floor where it was served.

For dessert, they served “Chinese 7-lawyer cake.” You can’t make this stuff up, or rather you can, but I’m not. They also served “bottomless tea” in ultra-chipped cups. One of the happiest times I ever had with my mom was at the place with the dumb waiter. She flew from New York to San Francisco to see me. I felt overwhelmed with love.

A few years later, I started working at Time Magazine. It wasn’t all the news. Just all the news that fit and didn’t wrap fish. What raised hemlines, what raised hackles, what raised heart rates, what raised hell. The first rule of media was to get it in on time. The second rule was to see the first.

I couldn’t imagine being old. I wouldn’t look like my mom and my feet wouldn’t hurt like hers. I wouldn’t shrink, wither, or die. Fast forward. My feet ache like my mom’s. My daughter lives far away. I remember her milk-drunk on my breasts and burrowed in my arms.

Fast forward fifty years. My child has been mad at me on and off for 30 years, but she needs cash. I can’t multitask. Should I screw myself or send a check? I can’t do both at once. When I began, media used pen, paper, and news judgment. We had IBM Selectrics and Kodachrome days. We weren’t providing content or processing words. We were called writers then.

And now? I’m trying to build a bridge, a bridge I build as I cross it. A bit like a tightrope. It can break and so can I. And so can she. We’re human. I think of trees. They breathe, eat, stay connected and care for their families.

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I’ve been up four minutes, and already facing a big decision: which to click first — the man who mowed a message for his ex-wife to see, or the frozen iguanas falling from trees. Seems they, too, are losing their grip.

Which may be why I once envisioned myself as an exhibit at a natural history museum. A mannequin labeled as a continuing care retirement community geriatric mess. A species that tends to leave fridges open, appliances on. A sign below the glass instructs, “Please do not upset our recent acquisition.”

A few weeks ago, I met a man who may have — just may have — possessed tenderness and strength. Plus he looked good, too. So I asked myself if I had spinach between my teeth. Evidently, the answer was yes. Exit man.

I recently moved to a CCRC. A Continuing Care Retirement Community. It is the only CCRC anywhere near this neck of the woods, and clearly the best as a result. This just in: it’s now an LPC, not a CCRC. Life Plan Community. They plan how long we’ll live there. Rather, how long we’ll live. Actuarial P&L stuff.

I look around the dining room and see a brave band of people originally from somewhere else move somewhere new as someone old. A frontier saga of sorts. As we aged, we were canceled, cast aside, as old people often are. Except here. Where we are the bottom line.

In Independent Living, where 80% of us live, there are tons of distinguished people, or as one of my friends calls them, PIPs. Pretty Important People. Or People in Power a few years back. A ton of influence and affluence, too.

Plus many former academics. Like the former philosophy professor. Tonight he’s sitting with the former physics professor discussing the evolving promise of I forget what.

You might wonder about the food, as we are in the dining room. If I were reviewing, I’d say one small step for bland, one smaller step for bland-kind. Small portions, and a bit dry, too. Occasional forays into Anchovy Butter or a shred of radicchio. Portions are small for slowed senior metabolisms. Then smaller for slower senior metabolisms.

Delete the defibrillators and it looks a bit like Downton, the chamomile of costume drama from across the pond. You know, prestige productions with castles, queens and classical music. We enter the Gilded Age. In slow motion, of course. Nothing is overdone, except the occasional piece of salmon left a bit too long on the grill.

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I’ve just been up four minutes and am faced with my first big decision: Which story should I click first, the man who mowed a message that he hopes his ex-wife will see — or the one about frozen iguanas falling from trees. Seems they, too, are losing their grip.

Once I envisioned myself as an exhibit at a natural history museum. A mannequin labeled as a continuing care retirement community geriatric mess. A species that tends to leave fridges open, appliances on. Plus specs of spinach in smile. A sign below the glass instructs, Please do not upset our recent acquisition.

A few weeks ago, I met a man who may have — just may have — possessed tenderness and strength. Plus he looked good, too. So I asked myself if I had spinach between my teeth. Evidently, the answer was yes. Exit man.

I recently moved to a CCRC. A Continuing Care Retirement Community. It is the only CCRC in anywhere near this neck of the woods, and clearly the best as a result. This just in. It’s now an LPC, not a CCRC. Life Plan Community. They plan how long we’ll live there. Rather, how long we’ll live. Actuarial P&L stuff.

I look around the dining room and see a brave band of people originally from somewhere else move somewhere new as someone old. A frontier saga of sorts. As we aged, we were canceled, cast aside, as old people often are. Except here. where we are the bottom line.

In Independent Living, where 80% of us live, there are tons of distinguished people, or as one of my friends calls them, PIPs. Pretty Important People. Or People in Power a few years back. A ton of influence and affluence, too.

Plus many former academics. Like the former philosophy professor. Tonight he’s sitting with the former physics professor discussing the evolving promise of I forget what.

You might wonder about the food, as we are in the dining room. If I were reviewing, I’d say one small step for bland, one smaller step for bland-kind. Small portions, and a bit dry, too. Occasional forays into anchovy butter or a shred of radicchio. Portions are small for slowed senior metabolisms.

Delete the defibrillators and it looks a bit like Downton, the chamomile of costume drama from across the pond. You know, prestige productions with castles, queens and classical music. We enter the Gilded Age. In slow motion, of course. Nothing is overdone, except the occasional piece of salmon left a bit too long on the grill.