In this debut collection of personal essays, Silcott looks at the tangle of midlife, the long look back, the shorter look forward, and the moments right now that shimmer and rustle around her: marriage, menopause, fear, desire, loss, and that guy on the bus, the woman on the street, wandering bears, marauding llamas, light and laundry rooms.

This isn’t a “how to” guide to middle age and it’s not a collection of memories either – for one thing, the author can’t remember that much – foranother, she’s more interested in the places where the raw bones of the personal intersect with the wider world. Where a moment or gesture suddenly feels emblematic or prophetic or final, and why is that? Why do some moments shimmer, while others fade into a quickly growing morass of “I can’t remember?”