Hanging on by a thread. Getting through the days. Waking up each morning from half sleep and vivid dreams, which vanish in the light. It’s gray light mostly. And rain. There’s been so much rain…

He walks up the stairs from his basement office, sometimes in the early afternoon, sometimes closer to evening, and hands me a few typewritten pages, which have come to be the best part of my day. The pages, two, sometimes three, are stapled together. On page 1 in big, bold letters is always the title, and underneath are the date and his name, Bruce Beckham.

I am writing this on the last day of March. The “In like a lion, out like a lamb” month. But that was before. When the lions of March were a sweet myth with an exit date.

March? April? Tuesday? Friday? The days blur now. And they inch along. “Is it time for lunch?” “Is it 5 o’clock, yet?” And yet, come night, each day feels too short somehow. Stunted. Where did it go? What did I do today?

It’s Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day as I write this, 6 a.m., dark still. I live on a busy street, where on a normal morning, I would have heard sirens already. I haven’t heard sirens in days. After Sept. 11, 2001, when the world was quiet like this, we gathered in our small downtown, holding candles, holding each other. We gathered in churches, restaurants, and bars. In groups we felt buffered. In groups we felt hope.

It’s different this time.

I don’t know why it dogs me, why it feels so important to know who my father was before he was my father. He died 15 years ago. Shouldn’t I be over wanting to understand the man who came home from combat and married my mother? “Tell me about the war, Dad,” I asked him when I was a child, a teenager, a young adult and an old adult. “No,” he said every time. “No.”

There’s a guy and he makes music at a beach bar, Flora-Bama, a one-of-a-kind, sprawling, right out of the movies, wooden roadhouse so named because it straddles the state line that separates Florida and Alabama.But this guy, Bat Bennett, never straddles. He jumps into every song, all kinds of songs — country, rock, oldies, the Beatles, Sting, John Denver, Neil Diamond. From Van Morrison to the von Trapps, he plays it. He sings it. And he rocks it.He stands on a stage, any stage — Flora-Bama has five — and with just his guitar makes time and place and whatever bad things that are happening in the outside world disappear…

We dressed up for the occasion. Not to the nines, but close. My husband wore a suit and tie, a white shirt with cuff links, a black felt fedora, and a gray wool coat. I wore black: black pants, shirt, boots, coat, gloves, and a wide-brimmed red hat…

I don’t know how love works. I should. I’m old enough to have learned a few things. But there is no logic with love, no reason, no formula. It just happens…

t’s difficult every year. Saying goodbye to one year while welcoming another. Looking back AND looking ahead. Summing things up, filing away, while making plans…

Dear World, I understand you don't believe in me anymore. I am a figment of the imagination, you say, a charade inflicted upon children. I corrupt youth and inspire greed. You think I am a farce. Ah, but you're wrong. I am neither a figment nor a farce. I am as real as you. In fact, I am you. I am the the best of you.

Fred Bruce, who will be 88 on Jan. 2, doesn’t remember when he started the tradition of bringing poinsettias to the graves of all the people who have meant something to him in his life. Not just family and close friends, but long-ago friends, school friends, work friends, men and women who shared, maybe, for just a short while, some part of his life. “I’ve been doing this since,” he pauses and shakes his head. “God, I can’t remember.” And yet, he remembers names, dates, chronologies, and family histories of people he hasn’t seen in half a century. “Eleanor was the best waitress. We worked together at Howard Johnson’s when I was 21. Her only son, Carl, was murdered in 1969. I watched him grow up. He was a fine, young man. He had small children. He was driving a cab for extra money.”

Every year, he…

The day I turned 50, my father called and said, “I can’t believe I have a daughter who is 50.” It was as if 50 had, just that morning, fallen unexpectedly into his world, like a giant slab of space shuttle debris plummeting out of a clear blue sky. As if my turning 50 hadn’t been preceded by my turning 30 and 40 and 48 and 49. My 50th birthday stunned him. He tried to explain, but couldn’t. There were no words, he said. Speechlessness, for this man, was unusual. He always had something to say. On my 50th birthday he went mute. I held the phone waiting. But all he did was sigh…

Until a few weeks ago, I was a point and shoot purist, standing tall on my moral high ground refusing to even consider doctoring my photos to make anyone look better. I edited my shots, of course, cropped and lightened and maybe softened a few facial lines. But no whitening of teeth, no smoothing of foreheads. No out, out damn spotting of freckles or blemishes. What was the point of making people look not like themselves, but what they might look like if they were nipped, tucked, and catapulted back in time? My goal, I said haughtily, was to take pictures that didn’t lie…

The gloves are my rabbit hole. Black cotton with perfect double seams stitched along each finger, triple stitched along the thumb, and scalloped at the wrist. Daytime gloves. Joe Berry gave them to me along with a mid-length pair, white cotton, still held together by a piece of thick thread, formal gloves, the kind you’d wear to a prom. No reason for this gift. No birthday. No occasion. “I knew you would like them,” he said simply…

I met him 40 years ago at Lauriat’s, a bookstore that used to be at the South Shore Plaza in Braintree. I know this because he signed my copy of “The Dead Zone” For Beverly — With good wishes; it was a pleasure to meet you — be well. Steve King” and then added the date: August 24, 1979. I was a big fan back then. I’m still a big Stephen King fan…

Back in 1982, when my husband and I were in our 30s and our kids were actually children, not the adults they are now, for Christmas we bought them ColecoVision, a video game player that was a big deal back then but would never pass muster by today’s standards. It was a large, clunky thing (there was no streaming in 1982); it had to be connected to a TV. It used a separate cartridge for each of its games. And it took time to warm up. But once it was working? It was a thing of beauty.