When we set our clocks forward for daylight savings time this spring, who knew we’d instead enter the twilight zone? That shoppers would fight over toilet paper. That I’d have the time to clean the junk drawer but still wouldn’t. That I would view a repair man coming to fix...

I’ve never harmed a living creature. I’ve never tied thread to a butterfly’s wings or pulled a daddy longlegs’ center from his wriggling legs. Thirty years ago, Ma gave birth to me on a rotting cloth cot strung up in a leaking tar paper shack in the Tennessee hill country....

Falling apart offers a huge benefit. You can decide how to put yourself back together—better. Early in life, I feared blindness. The Deuce came into my life. We were close to two miles from the road when Deuce, a sixteen-pound sheepdog lookalike chased a small animal across the road. He...