I am starting to see my family tree like a never-ending relay race, where one generation passes the baton to the next, picking up speed as each of us takes her turn to run in the world.

When I think of my grandma growing up on a farm in Oklahoma, married at the age of sixteen and having my mom at the age of eighteen, I am stunned by the ways in which my mom’s, mine, and my daughters’ young lives have differed.

Knock. Knock.

I’d answer with the proverbial who’s there, but I know very well that this is the knock of a solar salesperson. This is suburbia 2022. No one knocks unless they’re selling something and, in sunny California, during what I hope is the apex of global warming, there’s a 90% chance that it’s them.