Lots of planes this week, several time zones, not a lot of sleep.

At the other end of one leg of it, family. Never straightforward, increasingly worthwhile.

Acknowledge the responsibilities created and revealed by time’s inexorable march.

Documents, contracts, wills, records: paper as power, paper as memory, paper as replacements for both. Paper as the detritus of living. Paper as evidence of life, as preparation for its end.

What does it mean, to live in the moment, when the moments feel finite and the years between are so long?

Attribution

smoke thins into air, the serpent i saw as a kid 
never disappeared. it’s not even hiding. 
most folks don’t know the sound of smoke. 
though they hear it. though smoke gets mistaken 
for silence. most folks think they’re saying nothing 
when they’re saying the most.

— from yes the business folk by José Olivarez