This morning on the train, I smile in the direction of a woman holding her tiny sleeping baby who curls into her body like a tender appendage. It is early, still dark, and the windows reflect the car’s passengers back at us as though we were trees along the banks of quiet lakes. I do not know what color the future is. I do not quite understand the purpose of retirement planning or student loan refinancing. I wonder about what moves each of us through our days. Maybe I pray for laughter, for birds. Birds keep following me – the egret, the heron, the crow. They have all my life. How did they know where to find me? How did the cicadas know? I revolve around the seasonal cicada song as though it were the sun, and I one small planet on the edge of the solar system. I am learning to be less lonely, to inch closer toward warmth. I am learning to be more honest. To walk around wearing my whole face and body. The baby is wrapped in a zip-up sweatshirt with Atlantic City screen-printed in bold block letters. The baby’s feet are relaxed, moving with the train. My great sadness: it is an illusion that we can save anything at all. Money. This day. These baby feet in their precise attitude of repose. This small kindness: offering space for the mother and baby to exit the train first. This routine of feeding the birds each morning. We can’t hold it forever. We can’t hold it at all.