A few days ago, for instance, there was a lightning bolt along the left side of my vision. Not metaphorically. I mean an honest-to-goodness jagged streak of light, as though Zeus had taken a small personal interest in my optic nerve.

We arise early most days, between 4 and 5 a.m., and leisurely go through a couple of cups each while reading what interests us on our respective glowing devices. Every so often, one of us will share something we’re reading and a discussion may ensue.

Ageism. Is it real? I mean, does the age of a person make a difference as to the weight of his/her/its opinion?

What surprised me most was not the forgetting itself, but the effort required to think. Cognitive work began to feel costly. Tasks that once ran automatically now demanded preparation and recovery. Mental stamina became finite in a way it had never been before.

I love the hardware store. That is where they keep the lumber. And aside from chocolate and a few other delicacies (all of which are, coincidentally, chocolate), there are few smells more satisfying than freshly cut lumber. Especially if you arrive at exactly the moment they’re sawing boards to order and the entire building smells like ambition and sawdust.

Lying awake in the dark, I realized I wasn’t thinking about dating or marriage so much as adaptation. About what happens when a species wakes up in an environment it didn’t evolve for and begins improvising in real time.

The premise is simple: fear is not hysteria or imagination. Most of the time, it’s information. It’s your brain noticing patterns faster than your conscious mind can sort them out and letting you know—often without words—that something doesn’t line up.