““Near the end of her life, Grace Paley once remarked that the decades between fifty and eighty feel not like minutes, but seconds. I don't know yet if this is the case, but I do know this: the decades separating that young mother making her lists from the middle aged woman discovering them feel like the membrane of a giant floating bubble. A pinprick and I'm back there. But is she here? How can I tell her that her lists will not protect her?””
