So many authors and artists I admire died very young. They made this huge splash, and their ripples are still being felt, but they didn’t live long. I like to imagine that, since I eat a lot of broccoli and don’t drink bourbon, I might squeeze out more than the expected number of years to write things and tell my stories. I like to think that the actuarial tables do not apply to me. But, of course, they do.

It sometimes feels wicked to imagine my clothes living on someone else’s body. I imagine there are people who wouldn’t like the idea, and that’s why they buy new clothes. But I have lived in plenty of houses where other people have lived, so the idea that my clothes have had another life is not troubling.

I’ve been able to sit through all of this, almost like a normal person, just because I am reassured every minute that Janet Leigh was safe, no children were pecked by birds, and that terrible shark was, in fact, a very troublesome mechanical device named for a lawyer.

But every day on my walk, I see dogs. And this time of year—when the hydrangeas have started to turn pink around the edges and the berries are turning red on the trees—this time of year is called the dog days of summer, and I believe the dogs know it.

I’m looking forward to learning how this whole thing works. I want to see how the sausage is made. I want to see how these editors and designers and directors and marketers do what they do so well. I want to work with a whole bunch of people who know a whole lot more than I do and to keep learning. My plan is to have a good time—and to keep writing every day.

I remembered the conservative pastor’s wife who changed her name from Alice to Twyla when she discovered her birth mother. But I had no idea, after she became a widow, that she took to making corn wine or that she broke her arm when she fell off a table at the VFW.

I am looking forward to being in my tent again—sensing the changes in the weather, hearing the animals move around at night, feeling that I am entirely outdoors, with nothing but a thin layer of polyester between my tiny tent and the great open sky.

Before long, there is a large pot of soup and everyone in the village is fed, including the two soldiers. A village where everyone said they had no food, eats a meal together—a meal that would not have existed if it were not for a stone.