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As difficult as the last two weeks have been — and they have been so difficult as to cause me to question just about everything I’ve spent the last twenty years doing — I’ve somehow managed to find time to read. That’s maybe the answer to the question. I work so I have food to eat, a roof overhead, and time to read novels like Labor Day, by Joyce Maynard.
You know me. I’m not going to spend a lot of time dragging you through the narrative. It’s almost (but not quite) as bad as telling you what I dreamed last night (and you can be thankful that I never remember my dreams). It’s just about on a par with someone telling me the entire plot of a movie they’ve just seen, or what happened on a television show I don’t watch. (Oops. A little guilty of that myself, but on the other hand, nobody has to follow me on Twitter if they don’t want to.)
What I will say is that this book has some things I like. It has fragile people finding unconventional ways to cope, and it has people making unlikely connections with each other. It has a strong and engaging narrative voice. It has meditations on what it is we do to shape our world and how we affect the way others survive their own rocky journey.
Here’s what I think. There are people in this world who only need a chance. All they need is for someone to believe in them, or even just to get out of their way, and they will make things better for everyone around them. The problem is that we don’t always make the right decisions, either because we’re selfish or because we just don’t know any better. But the best part of us will always try. We’ll try to get it right the first time, and failing that, we’ll try to fix it the best we can. That’s about all we can expect from ourselves. | 
