I am helpless as my Sister wrestles with a Personal Problem. Uncertainty and Pain hover closely, but they can’t quite close out her Shining Grace in managing the struggle. Her humility and insight move my mind: I change. I want to share my newfound wisdom but can’t for the impact my writing would have on the innocent.

 I wonder about an online Friend whose outrage at Recent Events fixes on a bias similar to one he himself presented to the universe just Yesterday. (Is “online” giving too much away? I will switch pronouns and stay vague.) I want to ask him: Now do you know how They feel? I don’t think the connection has occurred to him, and I am not brave enough to ask.

 I know Somebody whose framing of her life seems largely responsible for the diminished enjoyment she gets from it, if that makes any sense. It would, of course, if you could fill into the cracks the details that are swimming in my mind, dying to leak, specifics about her temperament, marriage, and financial situation. I want to explore this without blame, for Truth hangs in the shadowy netherworld of nuance.

 I see things and want to make stories of them. I learn how to live by watching others. The swirling mixture of hurts and hypocrisies and jealousies and loyalties and triumphs that surround us represent a template for Fine Living, I think, even if it's to show us, sometimes, how not to live. But for me, coherence emerges only upon articulation. And I don’t know how to converse about the Really Important Stuff without resorting to those shapes and colors and sizes that would identify my teachers.

 So I say nothing.