My mom died one year ago on August 23. It was early on a Sunday evening and her death was unexpected. She called the crusts of bread ‘bones’ and when she was seventeen, my mom studied in France to be a translator for the United Nations.

Right now people are getting hit by cars and eating salads and writing amazing novels and sitting in prison and fighting in dead-end motels. I want to take it all in, even if it’s only by taking a picture or sharing a reassuring song.

While searching for the spot in New Mexico where I ran out of gas, I stumbled across a murder case at an internment camp.

A few weeks ago I sat in a scuzzy motel room in Arkansas, listening to Elvis. It was just past midnight, the weather was hot, trucks rattled the windows overlooking Interstate 40, and ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ played like a soulcrushing existential meditation.

She’s the unknown woman who points a camera directly at President Kennedy when he gets shot in the head. After everybody scatters, she keeps rolling tape before heading towards the grassy knoll.

“You smell that? That’s the linoleum glue.” Our tour guide flashed a dark grin. “That’s the smell of East Germany.”

Hatchet holes in rooftops. Rows of abandoned refrigerators. Crying jags. The reappearance of the first working stoplight. Defiant barbecues. Notes on 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose and Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

After an exhausting interrogation of my computer skills, the round man at the big advertising agency sighs and adjusts his rimless glasses…