Survival has been my mode for so long that I just assumed it’s what life requires. Not that less is demanded of me now, but like a dog sniffing into the autumn wind, I’m sensing a change.

That dread of looking into a calendar so overflowing that the obligations are scribbled all over each other. That thousand-tons awareness pressing down that it can’t all be done, at least not well.

Now the two of them went until they came to Bethlehem. And it happened, when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was excited because of them; and the women said, “ Is this Naomi?”

But she said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”