Foreword I’m wrestling with traditions. Rituals. Marking the time as it goes by with more than the weekday-weekend split, more than simply naming the days by their slot in the seven-day cycle and their appointed month and number. For years, I had church and family traditions to give shape and meaning to the seasons. Candlelight services on Christmas Eve, family lunches at my mother’s family’s houses on Thanksgiving and Christmas, Lenten sacrifices, Easter sunrise services. Those have all fallen away with time and geographic distance. Alex’s and my family have scattered across the country from Alaskan islands to South Carolina pinelands, from hip college towns in California to forested suburbs in Missouri, and even the 100 miles between Philadelphia and Baltimore is increasingly a distance I am reluctant to cross. How to commit any given holiday to one part of the clan or the other? Each holiday we spend with my father is a time zone away from a holiday we could spend with Alex’s fa...