Thirty-eight today, though, in my mind I've been thirty-eight since the start of the year. 2008? 38. 2009? 39. Born in 1970, I've always clung to the simple math of year and age without the subtlety of month or day. This produces a predictably anti-climactic celebration every year. Oh well. Anyone who knows me well knows that no matter what my number, I am always old at heart.

So this is it: Garden dirt clings to my arches and the chipped paint of my nails. The sun becomes precious, each hour of it a gift, as a long column of cartoon rainclouds appear in the forecast. I see ahead of me a year of increasing solitude and silence, not shutting the world out but hiding inside it without fuss or fanfare.