Alice was everywhere, until she wasn't. Just like at first, she was nowhere until she was. The absence of her before I knew she existed, was nothing. Now,  the absence of her shrouds everything. like a guest who never came to dinner; a stormy sky that didn't deliver. Nothing can wash away the void where she used to be. This is what I'm thinking about the first time I take a walk without her. I met Alice at a dinner party the raucous kind with a wild guest, beautiful people flittering in late summer air on second floor balcony backlit by a September sky.