If a tree falls in the forest?

Today I read Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel, American Born Chinese. Beautiful. Touching. Read it.

I think I'm ready to go back home (knock on wood). My mom remains relatively stable (knock vigorously on wood) with just a few side effects from the Xeloda now and again (knock the crap out of wood). And I think I need to go somewhere, um, else for a bit. We had a power outage this afternoon and the conversation we had about which phone to use, which one would work and which one wouldn't, took too, too, too long--only to return to the place where we started. The same thing happened with the conversation about what that vegetable was in the szechuan shrimp. Things must be explained again, and again, and again in this house--with much patience and respect for why things must be explained again, and again, and agan. I'm fine with that, but I'm beginning to miss, more and more, the kinds of conversations and even solitude I'm accustomed to. I'm living with three people whom I love dearly, but who all have different health and aging issues.

Also, I'm so afraid of breathing a sigh of relief (though I did already obliterate the wood ...)--but, can we all just say ... I have no idea what, but something in the territory of amazing about my mom? I'm wary of saying anything that would suggest that she's doing something special here because so many people have cancer and there's NO reason to suggest that they're not as amazing or more amazing than her. Their stories are different. I guess I'm just ... yeah ... I thought, well, I thought what I no longer want to put into words because then I would have to resurrect the wood again in order to knock on it.

Dammit. I'm not even a very superstitious person.