It’s the height of summer. I’m digging rocks out of the barnyard. The deerflies are ferocious. Fabric covers every inch of my body except my face and is saturated with sweat. I stomp the blade of the shovel under a rock erupting through the sod and pry. The ash handle snaps in two.

A cloud passes overhead. There are thousands of things to do today, millions of moments. The flies continue circling. The rock laughs at me. I laugh, too, and get down on my knees and work at it with the shaft of the shovel and find that it’s much, much bigger than I had imagined.