If I were carrying a heavy sack across the desert, I would probably lay it down somewhere and try to rest. I am 55 now, and I don’t have the physical fortitude that I used to. I’m someone’s aging dad who can pass for 42, with a body that feels like 61. Some mornings, I wake up feeling like a million bucks. Other mornings, I consult my Health chat to make sure I’m not dying. We are all dying.

Sometimes it feels like a dump truck pulled into your yard while you were sunbathing and decided to unload a bed of sand onto you. You became the sandcastle. Your day became the shells washing back out to sea. The seagulls picked nits out of your hair. You submerged yourself endlessly so the dream would stop. You woke up.