Twenty-six years my husband Lyle and I lived in the same dumpy apartment, and every year the walls closed in a little more. You can feel your life ending in constricting circumstances like that. Your universe contracts until there wasn’t room to outstretch your arms.

We were situated a couple blocks from Dolores Park and I walked there most mornings. Over the years I’d made acquaintances with the regulars: the man who practiced juggling bowling pins, the vet feeding chips to the birds, women working on different yoga poses, the guy selling pot cookies from a Hefty bag slung over his shoulder like a demented Santa Claus, and Naomi, the tightrope walker.

She was teaching herself how to walk the high wire. She used a ladder and fastened her tightrope between two palm tress, about twelve feet from the ground. Her arms outstretched to steady herself. She looked so graceful and beautiful as she moved across it, must have felt like there wasn’t a thing in the world she couldn’t do.

I kept coming to the park around the same time every morning and watched Naomi practice. When she’d successfully walked from tree to tree at a certain height, she’d loosen the cable and slide it another foot or so higher and try again at her new altitude. Eventually, it was more than twenty feet from the ground.

The first time we spoke, she said to me, “Are you ever going to try?”

I looked over my shoulder to see if she was talking to someone behind me. “What?”

“Wouldn’t you rather try it yourself than just watch?”

“I’d break my neck.”

“No,” she said, “you won’t.” She pointed at her high wire. “You don’t learn with it up there.” She crouched down by the dirt. “You start down here and inch your way up.”

I waved to her. “No thanks.”

She was still crouched down. “You can’t get hurt falling from here. Come on.”

I gave in. I must have looked ridiculous, a woman my age. Naomi moved the high wire down so it was only about a foot off the earth. She helped me climb onto the tightrope and said we’d try it together.

I let go of the tree, and she held my right hand as I took my first step and I wobbled but didn’t fall off. I took another step and laughed. My body shook more, but as long as I let Naomi’s hand steady me, I could do it.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“My husband would laugh.”

“Well, he’s not here.”

“Thank god for tiny miracles.”

“Do you want to try a step by yourself?”

“I’ll fall.”

“So what?”

I smiled. “Okay.” I let go of her hand and outstretched my arms.