Well, here we are again, living in Boy Land. The holiday will be fleeting as the Boy is heading off to the Canadian wilderness later this week and won't return till August. But already the fruit bowl has been sucked dry; the living room has been transformed into a staging area for online devices, couch blankets, oversized shoes, empty glasses, and a mandolin; the cat has polished up his bratty flirtations; and facts and inventions are being loudly declaimed. We are all delighted.

This morning, however, the doll-house is quiet . . . except for the exasperated cat, who is annoyed that his Boy remains firmly asleep. Tom is sitting up in bed drinking coffee and reading a book. I am at the kitchen table drinking coffee and avoiding the world's daily dose of terrible news. Fear and trembling, fear and trembling, and yet, so far, the sun continues to rise, and the unfolding beach roses nod toward the light. I don't know how to speak, but a generalized grief weights my breath and my heartbeat. Humility and humiliation. The vast and the personal. Arson and ice.