Yesterday I drove our Chicago young people to the ocean, and then we drank cider and mead flights at a local fermentory, and then they bought falafel at the Iraqi bakery, and then we played cards, and then I drove them to the bus station and we all cried.

I was still so tearful when I got home that Tom and Paul agreed that we should spend the evening sitting under couch blankets, eating pizza, and watching The Big Lebowski. It was a salve of sorts, but I still feel the twanging emotion of last night: hearts on our sleeve, time passing, falling in love, moving toward death.

On Christmas Day, sitting in my kitchen, my mother recalled a Viking metaphor for life: a sparrow flying in through one door of a mead hall, flying through the room, flying out through another door.

A life. A sparrow. Two doors in a long room.