This is such an odd way to return to this blog. I don't really want to go into all the business about what has kept me away except to say that my last post marked the beginning of a gradual withdrawal into a void out of which I have only recently emerged. (Cryptic, yes. But that's all you're gonna get -- for the time being, anyway.)
So what has brought me back?
Over the summer, my blogger friend Wendy died of a heart attack after the Flowers Sea Swim in Grand Cayman. She was 50. Sixteen years and two days older than I.
Strangely, I only really began to learn more about Wendy after her death It's just bits here and there that I could piece together from people's remembrances of her on her Facebook wall, but two things are clear. First, she loved swimming. Second, she was a consistently positive influence on everyone around her, no matter how close or casual the relationship.
It's such a cliché to contemplate one's mortality when a friend dies, often inspiring some sort of beat-the-clock flurry of activity or a commitment to living a better life, whatever that might mean. Something I have been contemplating for a while now has been what it means to live a vulnerable life.
