Nine years ago, the photo popped up on my phone, a birthday cake, candles, two little ones who no longer talk to each other and barely, if ever, talk to me. And while I wondered about the hopes that faded into forgetfulness, I watched a film, a feel good little film in which things all go right, and just about everyone has good intentions and I will finish this note before the film has finished. But then, as now, the youngsters in the photo are not talking to each other or me.
August 24
Come on summer, warm lazy days punctuated with thunderstorms, counting the time from the...