His notebooks were a balm against the howl of the internet. He did not understand how the world had become so interlinked, how all its information could live on a screen. It felt like an optical illusion, a bit of cheap sleight-of-hand. Information was supposed to be earned through effort, luck, and scribbling into your notepad. It required engagement, and my father craved the human contact needed to get it. The sales clerks would check their stock and make calls to other locations for a linen drum lampshade or a pair of loafers with tassels. He’d eventually find the item but would not purchase it, deciding he didn’t need it after all.

Most of the day was spent outdoors, working on stuff. I rarely choose that option, but am always glad when I have.

What we see when we look up, like what we see when we look around, is not a well-ordered clockwork ticking its way toward eternity. It is a mix of short-lived illusions, long-lived evolutions, meaningless overlays—the constellations we love, after all, are just superimposed serendipities, stars at vastly different distances seen as one—lucky accidents and unforeseen developments. Some comfort can be found in the indifference of the cosmos to our stories; some other comfort lies in the thought that the cosmos tells stories much like our own.