We were walking the dog, my sister and I -and sat down on a bench in the upper crust part of SF, Noe Valley. Settling into our patch of sun, a fashionably self-conscious twenty-something walked by. Followed by another…and another.

Overheard: “So I had to cancel my Pilates appointment this morning, and move my manicure…I was just too hung over…”

My sister says, “Ugh. Sometimes they make me sick.” They being the young urban modicums of hip and cool.

“This place looks like Melrose,” I snort.

“The thing is,” she says, “I live here. But I’m so much happier not living my life from that place.”

“You mean the place where one card falls and the whole house comes tumbling down?”

“Yes.”

“It’s called a paradigm. We’re all human bodies walking around with our version of ‘the way things are”…If she (I point to Muffy) were to lose her job, or heaven forbid contract some incurable disease, tomorrow, she would respond the only way she knows how. As for me, I don’t want to hold on that tight to any thing or way of being…so I can respond appropriately to change.”

“I know: I’m just so grateful, so blessed to be here every single minute of every day. If she lost her 50,000 dollar rock she would lose it. I’d be like…”

“…it wasn’t mine to begin with.”

“Exactly.”

“I thank God for every day I get. It’s a friggin miracle we’re even here.”

“Amen to that, sister.”