Forgive me, but

I have had a glass and a half of wine, and I am myself, my emotions near the surface.  No, my emotions are the surface.  They are the unhidden, unbidden me.

Lately my father has been leaving things at my house—old publications featuring stories of mine (Risk and Insurance magazine, let's say, where I was the Benefits columnist, a job I could do in the middle of the night so I could be a mom in the daytime).  Sometimes I look into my father's packages right away and sometimes I forget, and only today did I find this photo (I took it myself, 21 years ago) of my mother, my father, and my three-month-old son.

Oh, how the passing of time breaks your heart.  Relentlessly.

For this same boy, this night, texted me from a Phillies game, where he'd gone with a friend. "It's such a beautiful night," he wrote.  "And we have such great seats."  Why does something like that make me cry?  Why does a phone call, thirty seconds later, from Elizabeth Law make me cry harder?  "Dangerous Neighbors launches tomorrow," she says, after we chat about a million other things.  "And I want you to know that we at Egmont are proud of this book."

Something like that, or close to that.

Elizabeth Law, calling me.

Dangerous Neighbors, a book I care about more than I'm willing to admit, launching tomorrow.

My son, texting me from a Phillies game, where a soft rain is falling.  I am happy. 

Look.  Life is full of a thousand oddities and more regrets.  It is the why not me and the why me and the indignity and the shame.  It is also a son and a book and a father, redistributing memories.  What does it mean to launch a book about a city you love?  What does it mean?

It means your heart is full.  It means right now is the right right now.