The prevailing mood of my early and Ann's mid-fifties has been one of the sense of an ending, surely, but more than that, of a gathering urgency. . . . Fewer of the moments between us feel rehearsed, or forced. And now, just as we had begun to glimpse something like wisdom, glimmering over the horizon, the world smacks the hell out of us. I am strangely grateful, even so, if only for the felt return, in recent days, of the possibility of strong...