Grace
Grace. We didn't talk about grace in the Mormon church when I was growing up. But the word has been rattling around in my head, banging pots and pans in my mind attic, trying to get my attention. Grace is, I think, the gap between who you want to be and who you discover you actually are. It's the gap between your potential and your visions and your plans, and the rough and sketchy road life drags you down. It's the map plotting the difference between the person you thought your parent was, and who they really are. It's the terrible equation to describe the blank wasteland between who you wish you could be for your kids, and the paltry whatever's on hand you can provide. Crumbles, handfuls, castoffs. My living beating heart, all my love-blood. It's the creep of old age across unrealized dreams. It's the slipping of the mind, the stutter of the senses. It's the unreliability of the narratives we tell ourselves to soothe or shape the senseles...