“Let’s see what your fortune holds,” my sister Lynn said, brandishing a pack of tarot cards.

A recent college graduate, I was off to France to spend a year as an au pair. She laid out the cards carefully—we were just messing around; neither of us really believed it—and put on a good show. Lynn explained each card with gravitas, knowing nods and occasional sighs. I don’t remember what card came—the naked Star? The Wheel of Fortune?—when her eyebrows jumped up to her hairline and she announced “You will come home pregnant.”

Wash your hands after using the bathroom, before using the bathroom if you’ve been outside first, before dinner, after playing with any toys, instruments, or feeding your fish. Even if you’re about to take a bath, if you’ve just done

Dear me from one year ago,

I regret to inform you that tomorrow will be one of the worst days of your life.

Tomorrow you will reset the password to log into your joint bank account. You asked him for the password many, many times. He always says, “Oh it’s on my phone… I don’t remember it…I will get it to you when I have time…I can’t do it right now.”

There is no time for pleasantries, let’s get to it.

You will fight a good fight from a place of absolute terror. You will list improbable reasons why you might be the person for whom antidepressants just really aren't the solution. You will throw pseudoscience and bad journalism against a woman with twenty years’ experience and a prescription pad. And then you will give in.

I’ve driven by our old farm a few times, slowed down and leaned out the window to review what used to be. But yesterday was different - I pulled in. Waited.

The pundits on NPR have been abuzz the last day or so about a new report indicating that one in five kids under the age of fifteen has had sex. So-who’s surprised? As soon as adults become parents, they get amnesia when it comes to sex. And they become hypocrites. Kids can smell hypocrisy a mile away. I did. I was a kid during the last great age of hypocrisy, the 1950’s. There was lots of teenage sex around then too, but you’d never know it based on the memories of those who were there.

Margaret and I are much too sober for this place and I’m not in the mood for what’s on the menu—stale beer and dim neon lights. Eileen, a friend who used to work with me at a now-defunct magazine, wants to stay out at the Legion-style bar across the street from her studio apartment. It’s not a particularity shady late-night bar it’s just not where Margaret or I want to be.

We began with Martha the cat, Nashville, Tennessee, 1974. Mary and I had not yet met, but Muffy, a mutual friend, was helping Mary find a place to leave her cat, Martha, for a week or two during Christmas. Jeffrey and I lived in the country, and Muffy delivered Martha to us. Three weeks later, Martha was still with us.

How many Seventeen articles do I need to read to get it right? “The makeup should look natural, like it’s not there. The idea is to enhance, not pronounce.” That’s what the people in the article say.

June 23, 1985

Dear Lourdes the Younger,

I’m sending you this love and care letter on your sixteenth birthday in the hope that it will save you from more pain and heartache. You don’t know it yet, but this summer will irrevocably change your life in ways you can’t imagine. You will fall in love, fight for love, and then, hide your love.

Before bed, I text myself a reminder to write in the morning about the time I visit him near Crested Butte in October. It is my first understanding of how early winter comes to the mountains—the marvel of fall suddenly brought to its knees by the first violent winter storm.