By the time most of us begin to know ourselves, there seems too much to know.

From Alfred’s journal

Switch asked me today how old I am, and I told him I did not know, which is true, and then spent the whole gray afternoon on the fence rail trying to work it out from the number of winters I could actually remember. Five, maybe six. There have been more. I used to think a life accumulated the way a nest does, one twig at a time, and that if I kept at it I would eventually have the whole thing in view. By the time most of us begin to know ourselves, there seems too much to know. The woman two yards over was going through a box of photographs on her steps, holding each one at arm's length a long while before setting it down, and she did not get through the box before the light went.