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MOTHER
I called my mother the other day and she did not answer, which she would always do when I called. The dead, I concluded, no longer play by the rules they did when they were still alive. Of course she will call me soon, disrupting my sleep, and chastise me for not trying again.…
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TAPESTRY
It is like emotions are something you wear on your sleeve, he said, picking at threads of sadness, trying to pry them from the fabric of the moment, never understanding they were the warp of his existence, joy and laughter, compassion and empathy the weft. She said, that is only an illusion, and you…
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TIME’S ARROW CURSED
He will be 90 in a few weeks. He doesn’t think this is possible. He says he wasn’t supposed to live this long. He asks again how old he is. You’re still 89, I tell him. He has a relieved look on his face. Then he smiles at me, says, that means you are…
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ADOPTING A HISTORY
She likes to tell him that he came from a small village in Lithuania. He prefers to remind her that he was born in the District of Columbia which has never been mistaken for a small village in Lithuania, although he knows he could find several who speak Lithuanian there. And, he points out to…
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COUPLING
He asks when as if it were all a matter of timing as if the immediacy or lack of it somehow really mattered. She would never ask that but would want to know who. She’s far too polite to ever ask why preferring to see the scene in the mind’s eye allowing a thin…
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SELF AND NO-SELF
The Buddha said when the student is ready the teacher appears. My Rabbi used to say when you are ready the Lord will appear. But you may not recognize God, that’s okay. Both Buddha and my Rabbi might have said that when you are ready you will appear and it is then you will no…
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TOMORROW
As night settles over our house we slip beneath the blanket and imagine the day to come in all of its promise. By morning, reality will set in and I will awake to a day reliant on us to set its course, a captain with no chart and only hope and compassion to steer us…
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FELINE LOGIC
Yesterday the cat explained at great length that we occupy her house because she loves us, but that we dare not take this status for granted. I scratched her behind her ears to signify my agreement and so she took my simple act of kindness. You get another week she said, purring.
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DREAMS
Dreams are a place where the dead are free to walk about, where they speak in voices barely recalled, but which seem so familiar to the ear. They are willing to engage you in conversations left unfinished, you are always surprised at what they have to say, at how it is not at all what…
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THE FACT OF ADOPTION
The fado fades under the weight of the Highland pipes and dreams of Cascais fade into the Scottish sky. Where once I thought of wandering Lisbon looking for my face, I imagine I see it in the Grampians, reflected off the lochs whose headwaters now feed my dreams. One joy of being adopted is that…
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an old writer and his words 