Two words.

A few nights ago I pulled off the shelf my old copy of Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson, a book I first encountered in college. Every few years I get it down and flip through its pages, but I haven’t really reread it in years.

I discover, thumbing through it now, my complete annotations—just two words—written in pencil on the inside back cover, sometime more than a decade ago. Since I bought this book the paper’s grown brown; my little inscription’s surrounded by a dark, creeping frame.

I don’t know if this is a moral Sherwood Anderson wanted us to take from his book, but it’s good enough for me—and a good enough moral, I think, for navigating this life.