I got my period over the weekend, and there was a tinge of disappointment, a sign of magical thinking that I really need to quell. Why should I think myself exempt from the indifferent cruelties of biology?

On Sunday, we walked to the woods, stopping for a cone at an ice cream truck. Queen Anne's lace and pink spires of fireweed lit the verges, and the husband tossed Sam into the river because he hadn't been bathed in months. What is summer but a dog swimming back to shore and a man in rolled-up shirtsleeves, laughing under a brilliant blue sky?

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