# Enough to Live On

## After the large thing

To digest is to take what was large and outside us and make it small enough to live on. Food becomes warmth. A long day becomes a few clear memories. A rush of words becomes one line we can say without strain. The excess was never meant to be carried all the way home.

## Two kinds of patience

The same word means a short account: the news set down to its bones, a book reduced to what it actually changed. Both senses ask for time. You cannot hurry the body, and you cannot honestly shorten what you have not sat with. A digest made in a panic is only noise with the volume turned down. A digest made with care is a form of welcome. It says there is enough here. You do not have to swallow the whole world before sleep.

## Late in the year

Near the end of October, the season itself seems to be digesting. Leaves loosen. Light leaves earlier. What looked endless in summer becomes a smaller store: a warm room, a name still spoken, a plan modest enough for tomorrow. I imagine a person reading a short page while the window fogs. Outside, the year thins. Inside, a few sentences hold a kindness noticed and a mistake owned. That is the quiet philosophy in the name. Meaning is not something we hoard. It is broken down until an ordinary life can use it.

*What we keep should be light enough to carry and strong enough to feed us.*