The words to the Carole King song “So Far Away” are in my head these days: “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?” Not because I’m longing for someone who’s moved away—nothing as dramatic as that. It’s more the pace of life that has me humming, the days that zoom by, the children growing up, the seasons passing. Sometimes middle age seems like one big whoosh.

But some of the disorientation is self-imposed. It comes from the constant distraction of living, of interruptions by text and email, of time disjointed and concentration broken. The “anybody” who doesn’t stay in one place anymore, that’s me.