This is my arm yesterday, Saturday, July 16, early afternoon, with Marin County in the background. The car was too hot and the air through the open window was not enough. I couldn’t take my eyes off the way the glass’s shadow marked my skin, hence this photo. It pleases me with its echoed shapes and layers, some of which were invisible to me when I snapped the shot.

Lately I’ve been angry, constantly irritated. No one listens. I am never alone or too alone. I am sure someday I will be totally alone. My work is difficult and often unappreciated. I feel burned out half of the time, deeply engaged for the rest. My friendships are dying through neglect, contempt, and hurt feelings. I question friendship, I question love, and don’t know if I have it in me to be a good anything to anyone anymore.

But the extra thing that pleases me about this photograph – or perhaps surprises me is the better way to put it – is that my arm looks just like my father’s. I had no idea I was carrying around these pieces of him. What else do I carry? Who, and what, I am connected to through fate and blood? I am a person of fragments gathered into a fractured, viable whole.