BitterSweetLife

There's a certain type of building--usually old and echo-filled, with lots of stone and soaring ceilings--that creates a quiet you can feel as well as hear, an atmosphere that you'd almost swear is holier than normal meeting spaces built with steel and drywall. This type of building used to satisfy the part of me that enjoys solemnity and reflection and ritual. Now this type of building makes me very, very nervous. And maybe for different reasons than you think.

It's because inside these buildings, silences linger. Every period may as well be an ellipsis. A question mark at the end of a sentence lengthens into a round of soul searching. A dramatic pause lasts for about an hour. And it's exactly at that moment-hour that Aidan says, "COLOR MORE BALLS, DADDY?" At which Asher laughs, an open-mouthed guttural chuckle that really, really carries, and I think, Oh boy, here we go again.