My husband is the one for making lists. For years he’s been singing the praises of writing things down and crossing things off. It’s satisfying to draw a line through something that’s been done, he tells me. It’s exhilarating, he says.

When our children were young, his lists included chores expected of them. On Saturday mornings when they padded into the kitchen and saw him at the table, pen in hand, hunched over his yellow legal pad, composing, they groaned.

It is a perfect autumn day, late afternoon, and I am in the garage, cleaning. Although maybe "piling" is a better word for what I am doing. Rearranging. Moving things. It's a two-car garage, which means that in theory it can hold two cars. In fact, it never has. Clearing a path through the garage to the back door is my only goal.