Truest, Immutable Facts

Perhaps the main reason I enjoy reading Susan Orlean's Free Range blog for The New Yorker is her consistent ability to offer commentary on a thought or development -- or sometimes regarding the most fleeting of daily, mundane occurrences -- and capture with complete exactitude the nuances of the human condition. She finds impeccable phrases and modifiers to precisely detail her own humanity (and ours, too).

In a recent entry, Orlean considered the complications of finding our way through the complexities of aging parents and the additional obstacle of geographical separation. There's no 5-step (or 12-step, or 127-step) process that will march you through all the challenging times of your life. You simply must survey your options, listen to advice from wise sources, and make the best decision you can. And, of course, occasionally you'll find that isn't good enough.

Witness:

Sometimes I'm dazzled by how modern and
fabulous we are, and how easy everything can
be for us; that's the gilded glow of technology,
and I marvel at it all the time. And then my mom
will call, and in the course of the conversation
she’ll say something disjointed that disturbs me
and reminds me of her frailty, and then she'll
mention that it's snowing hard in Ohio and I'll
wonder how she's going to get to the grocery
store, and I look at my gadgets and gizmos, and
I realize none of them will help me. If anything
they've filled me with the unreal idea that
everything is possible; that virtual is actual; that
you can delete things you don't like; that you can
find and have whatever it is you want whenever
you want it; but instead I'm learning that the
truest, immutable facts of life are a lot harder and
slower and sometimes sadder, and always mystifying.