A woman feeling the looming depressive strike at her day by day tells her mother, who responds with “It is a courageous thing to be happy”.

The weight of being is measured in absences. Consider what’s held between the lingering stares of heavy-hearted eyes, the pulses beating when words are left unsaid, or restless palms desperate to meet again. We are prone to losing grace in absence. We meander from our selves, lose track of incorporeal tethers, uncertain to be grounded again. A year and some change in absence of each other while feeling the same things makes for quite the emotional conundrum. But absence is kin to zero in that they pine after absolute grace. It’s easy to figure that we don’t measure up. Or that carrying ourselves through a day is all that we can manage. Or that deep breaths are a luxury. The reality is the distance between one another is a straight line. Wayne Shorter is known to bestow grace upon us when we are restless in

absence.​