Now, Karen, now...

Sunlight this night splayed by blinds and splashing, splintered, across the living room’s wooden floor. And again, and from more of a distance, some neighbor’s mower grinding air, to no effect but sound, to no effect but sound, that clamorously insistent sound, and, in its wake, plumes only of ground grass.

And me here tonight, one day nearer sixty, still contemplating now what…now, for goodness sake, what…and all the more so with yet another job offer now in the offing.

No need now to trouble readers with details; those are mine, as they have before been mine.

The question, rather, is older, as those who have long considered such questions were themselves so often older: who am I, what have I done, what more might I yet do?

To my son, Brendan, the answer is likely quicker: I’m 26, have so distant an end conceivably ahead, have already worked for years for others in New Orleans after Katrina, have twice been to Haiti and am now poised for post-tsunami Japan.

And my son is, truly, my son.

A younger me had similar inclinations, if fewer opportunities, with, alas, the shadow of the Vietnam War graying my teens, my early twenties. And time, as it is wont to do, then made itself the thief of later opportunities, with responsibility freighting daily, weekly, inevitably by the decade, any hope of, well, any hope.

Until now. And still now.

And still tonight the chance to do good, to do what I once set out to do, to not do what I’ve since done, what, arguably, is merely offered again. And now, my love, mindful that similar offers earlier have only gotten us here, now.

Here.

Now, Karen.

Now…