For no good reason, I fell asleep on the couch last night. I woke, not to this sound of the garbage truck in the alley, but from the dappled light of the sun. At this time, in this season, it fell across my eyes.

The light entered my eyes, after traversing the frosted pane with its stained glass emblem, the storm window still down for the winter, the leaves of the neighbor’s tree, the skin of the atmosphere, the eight-minute space from the surface of the Sun, the millennial-long random walk from its birth at the core.

Eighteen years ago, our eldest was rocking in a wind-up swing. The swing, likely now in landfill if not some other living room, was named Flip A Way. Flip A Way 1 2 3, it was written on the top of the apparatus. Our child, she would stare enchanted at the window while rocking. Nor’easter, we called it, because it’s the window in the northeast corner of the house.

Last night he officially committed to college, placing the deposit right after or while we spoke. As I write this, the Sun and Earth are dancing as to change the light through Nor’easter, so the shadow of the branch of the tree in the neighbor’s yard falls in this direction.

Eighteen years ago, five years ago, that shadow would not have passed through the type of glasses that I now use for intermediate distance. I can use this pair again after bringing them to Costco the day before yesterday, after dropping off my parents and sister at the theater to watch the movie about the saint-to-be, the beatified boy who died some days before our eldest was born.

I bought the glasses last year at a Costco in Nevada. The left lens had fallen from the frame. Just give me twenty minutes while you shop, she said. She didn’t ask for proof. They only need a top and bottom line.