Finished Joan Didion's Blue Nights this weekend, and as crazy as she seems right now, and you wonder who wouldn't be after losing a husband and daughter in close proximity, her book has some real insights into how death and illness can change your life in an instant.

She writes:

"When we lose the sense of the possible we lose it fast. One day we are absorbed by dressing well, following the news, keeping up, coping, what we might call staying alive; the next day we are not. One day we are turning the pages of whatever has arrived in the day's mail with enthusiasm -- maybe it is Vogue, maybe it is Foreign Affairs, whatever it is we are intensely interested, pleased to have this handbook to keeping up, this key to staying alive -- yet the next day we are walking uptown on Madison past Barney's and Armani or on Park past the Council on Foreign Relations and we are not even glancing at their windows."

(S-R archives photo of Joan Didion)

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