I just looked outside to the flash of blue and white lights sparking over the wet pavement.

"How we doing?" a male voice said, loudly, and with a certain weight of authority you only hear from police officers and such.

The guy didn't have his lights turned on, and an amicable exchange followed, closing with the two men wishing each other Bon Nuit before they coasted from the curb, one toward home, the other to prowl the streets for another few hours at least. I also saw a police car crawling through our graveyard tonight, its headlights flashing over grey gravestones. The cause? Drug bust? Maybe just a quest for some peace and quiet? It is a nice graveyard, up on a hill over town, frequented by deer and shaded by huge oaks and maples. I like taking guests there sometimes. We always stop by the mausoleum and look through the bars to the stained-glass window, which depicts a sour-looking woman in a stiff collar, two mounds of severe brown hair, and what I can only term "wall-eyes" though I don't suppose that's the right term anymore. One eye looks to the right and the other to the left, and the stained glass is lit from behind just right and flanked by rows of stone coffins on either side.

Did I mention I want to be cremated? Please, nobody preserve my image in stained glass. I think a nice park bench with my initials, under a tree but not covered in bird excrement, would be nice.

I was going to write about an awful thing that happened close to where we live--a murder/suicide--I interviewed a pastor who works in the community this afternoon for the column this week. But it's too heavy, a whole ocean of misery. Much easier is the tiny blips that color our moments: eating chips and salsa tonight with the girls, the rain that hit the back of my neck as I closed the shed doors, the flashing squad car lights just now, how it all turned out so amicably for a man who might have gone home with a ticket, but didn't.