And just like that the fence goes on, one hand clapping. The sound of no sound, the nothingness that was already here. Which we define or can't define or are defined by for our short while.

I'm back at The Shrine, Sunday late morning, a pleasant breeze in the shade a little ways down from the St. Francis Center entrance. My mom and my brother were already here with my dad outside when I arrived. They left a few minutes ago.

I clipped my dad's fingernails. They had gotten long, and were quite dirty. He was doing the clipping initially but he has always cut his nails so short. So it was not a surprise when he snipped a bit of cuticle or underbed—something that wasn't nail.

I took over the task. They're not as short as he wants them to be; not as short as he would've done them himself, back when. But they're better than they were before and that will have to do. That seems to be the offer on the table when it comes to the work I do. Like the concrete patio/stoop patching I did out at Farm earlier this week. Egads, was that really earlier this week? It wasn't perfection.

I made one rookie mistake that I should not have made: smoothing the concrete with a sponge before it had set up enough, resulting in the removal of the topmost 3/16 of an inch or so, sponging away too much sand and cement, leaving the gravel loose and in need of removal, meaning ultimately the new surface was not as smooth and even as it could have been, should have been. B told me by text, "I'm sure it's better than before." And, yes, it is. But I want better than better than before...

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