Middletown High School, where the state boys soccer Final Four games were played recently, is the Taj Mahal of high schools, the size, I thought, of at least two airports.

An eight-lane track wraps around a large turf field overlooked by a Jumbotron — yes, a Jumbotron — and at the other end is a large grandstand over which a commodious press box stretches. I tend to stay away from press boxes, though, preferring a ground-level view, as close to the action as possible.

We, my photographer friend, Craig Macnaughton, and I (when it comes to picture-taking, I am John the Baptist to his Jesus Christ) arrived Sunday morning at least two hours in advance of the East Hampton-Greece Athena final. He went off to check the lighting and to soak up the atmosphere while I took a bag of balls and my racket to the tennis courts, hidden from view around the school’s backside. He told me, by the way, that the stadium’s lighting was of Super Bowl quality.

The patched tennis courts with lonely piles of leaves in the corners clearly hadn’t been beneficiaries, as I was told the turf stadium had been, of a New York State “excel grant.” And there was goose shit all over the lacrosse fields above the courts. There’s always a worm in the apple.

Of course what sticks in my craw the most is the fact that our star player, Nick West, because his left foot had been stepped on and broken by an opposing player in the semifinal, never got a chance to play in what would have been the biggest game of his high school career.

With him I’m quite sure we would have won. Defensively, he would have given Greece Athena’s 6-foot-6-inch center midfielder a run for his money, and he would have sparked our offense as well, as he had in the first half against Jamesville-DeWitt the previous day, before he had to be sidelined for the rest of the game because of his injury.

In the final, it was one bad break after another as key players, either because of injuries or cardings, were withdrawn, one after another, from the field of play, the last, after a Greece Athena player had flopped in front of him, being East Hampton’s stout-hearted defender, Bryan Oreamuno, whose late grandfather, Enrique Leon, was one of the first to come here, in the late 1960s, from Costa Rica.

Oreamuno, who had been called earlier for a foul as he contested a 50-50 ball at the top of East Hampton’s penalty box (a referee’s gift that resulted in a 2-1 Greece Athena lead), was in tears, and five and a half minutes later most everyone was in tears or choked up — the players, who had been dreaming of a state title since they began kicking a ball around together at the ages of 5 or 6, the coaches, who had made of these talented ball-handlers a great team, and the some 300 fans who’d made the trip upstate.

Rich King, East Hampton’s coach, was right when he said afterward in reply to a sportswriter’s question that he didn’t think Greece Athena was the better team, though it had been, he said, on that day.

Later, once we were back, Craig emailed me that he’d gone with his wife to drown his sorrows at Townline BBQ, and that while they were there, the team and its coaches had come in, all seemingly in good spirits.

I, who had spent a while recounting to my wife on my return all of the day’s bad breaks and injustices, my eyes welling up again as I did so, was glad to hear it, that they knew they were a great team.

The best one I’ve ever seen, Greece Athena included.

As we pulled out of the massive parking lot, I thought of what Mike Burns had said after our softball team had lost a state final in Binghamton about 10 years ago, to wit, that the other team had to return to Glens Falls, while we got to go back to Bonac.

I am thankful that Facebook wasn’t around when I was a teenager. I can’t even imagine the trouble I’d have gotten into if it was. As it is, I’m a grown woman and get in trouble from my children for some of my posts, which I think are quite harmless and often humorous. They don’t agree, so obviously they didn’t get their sense of humor from their mother.

I’ve been told by them mid-post to get off Facebook. Can you imagine? As Rodney Dangerfield used to say, I get no respect. We were all at a wedding last summer and someone posted a picture of my family — my husband, two daughters, and my son-in-law. I just happened to mention that my upper body looked damn good, especially my girls, both of which were standing tall and perky.

In my post I wrote, “Wow, look at those babies, damn they look good!” Well, you would have thought I had declared a war on women the world over. All three of my kids, one as far away as Hawaii, commented under the post, “Mom, get off Facebook. Now.”

But that’s when my real girls, my girlfriends, began the battle and told my children to get off Facebook and to leave their mother, whose girls aren’t always so perky, alone. I don’t know how these celebrity mothers get away with all their nudity and foul language. I was fully clothed in the picture but just happened to be wearing a really good brassiere, and still I got hell for it.

I was late to join Facebook, and only did so at a colleague’s suggestion that I might be missing some juicy news tidbits. At first I just scrolled through other people’s posts and actually found it boring. Half of the people posting pictures of their little darlings I didn’t know and the other half were crying a river that I cared nothing about. I had enough problems of my own to bother with someone else’s ratty landlord or boss. Don’t they realize their bosses might read their posts? I doubt my boss, David, reads my Facebook posts, but if he did he would know that I’ve said he’s the most wonderful boss in the world. I hope he reads this because I’ll be hitting him up for a raise soon.

But then Facebook pissed me off. They started culling pictures from other areas of my life that I would never have posted, ones in which the girls did not look good and neither did my hair, a frizzy mess. In one picture, standing between my two daughters, I had my arms raised and wrapped around their shoulders and had a camel toe. If you don’t know what a camel toe means ask a 20-something. Let’s just say it’s an unflattering crotch shot.

And who the hell is Facebook to ask where I went to college or what types of music I like and then assume to know what movies I might like and post them on my Facebook page?

When a good friend of mine died I asked for prayers on his behalf. How innocent is that? But the family was furious with me, and Facebook made me cry. I should have waited for them to announce the death, but thought our friendship allowed me some rights. We’ve since made up, of course, but I learned a valuable lesson. Mind your own business when a friend dies, at least until the family announces it.

If Facebook was around when we were kids, I can’t imagine the fights it could have started. And remember I’m a Bronx girl, so fights can turn very dangerous. We would probably have commented on Suzy’s frizzy hair, Jimmy’s black socks with shorts, Nancy’s dirty ankles, or Sister Mary whatever’s yellow, broken teeth that we had to look at all day while stifling giggles or risk being beaten with a yardstick.

Let’s make a Thanksgiving pact. No nasty posts for this one wonderful day, the one holiday that doesn’t involve gifts, the stress of buying those gifts, but lots of good food. We can do it. I know we can because Christmas is right around the corner and, boy, that is sure to give us plenty to write about on Facebook. And remember, if you give a crappy gift, many of which I have received over the years, you will be written about for all to see. So shop carefully, my friends! With Facebook on the scene there’s no hiding behind re-gifting, so don’t even try it.

I’m planning on getting perky again on Thanksgiving. I just hope the girls don’t get in the way of the platters I’ll be serving food on. And if things go well, I might just get perky again for Christmas and have myself a very perky Christmas. At least my husband will enjoy it.

Janis Hewitt is a senior writer for The Star.

Driving, as I often do, toward the Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton, crossing the place where Lumber Lane and the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike conjoin and a driveway for a large parking lot to the west butts in, I can’t help feeling a sense of satisfaction when I see the imposing 19th-century buildings that mark two corners of the intersection. Not too long ago they were in need of various degrees of rehabilitation and faced uncertain futures.

Today, one, on the northeast corner, is the high-style Topping Rose House, with a celebrated restaurant and hotel accommodations, while the other, on the southeast corner and still undergoing renovation, was preserved with the help of South­ampton Town and Suffolk County and will become a Bridgehampton Historical Society museum.

Both buildings were built in Greek Revival style in the mid-19th century by a prominent Bridgehampton man, Abraham Topping Rose, who settled his family first in what is now known at the Nathaniel Rogers House. He built the Topping Rose House later, apparently wanting to live in something bigger.

I can’t but feel good about historic buildings that have been saved and put to good use, and I admire those who make it happen, even if they are not in my immediate neighborhood. (I once thought about restoring a three-story building in Flanders, which was dark green, derelict, and totally out of place, but it was only a fantasy.)

We East Hamptoners tend to be full of pride of place; we puff up like peacocks when we have an opportunity to tell visitors the history of the 17th-century Mulford Farmhouse or the early-20th-century Thomas Moran studio, among other historic buildings in the village. We almost claim ownership of the Montauk Light, which is as iconic a structure as can be and certainlydoesn’t belong to us.

On the other hand, Sag Harbor, which is full of old houses that residents, summer and year-round, have restored, didn’t seem to make much noise when the former Bulova watchcase factory was sold to developers who are turning it into a citified and exceedingly high-priced complex of condominium apartments. It’s too bad that a use wasn’t possible that was more or less in keeping with the New England factories that have been reimagined as public gathering places.

As for my own house, a part of it dates to the 18th century although additions and renovations were done in the 20th. And it certainly is not going to be a teardown in the 21st.

Back in Bridgehampton, it is reassuring that residents literally took to the streets (well, just Main Street) to argue against the construction of a 9,030-square-foot commercial building for a CVS Pharmacy on a vacant tract across the road from the Topping Rose House. They have argued that the community’s war monument is in the middle of the intersection there, that traffic is already bad, and that the property would make an appropriate commons. They have even formed an organization called Save Main Street.

As things like this sometimes go, the protesters seem to have history on their side and not much else. Excavation has already begun, apparently on the strength of one permit, although another is needed, and the Southampton Town Planning Board has been sued by the property’s owner and CVS for requiring that a full environmental study in keeping with state law be done. Well, at least the protesters can take consolation in the restoration of the houses that Abraham Rose built.   

Over the years on Halloween I’ve been the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Tin Man from “The Wizard of Oz,” a princess, of course, and a giant face, a mask that covered everything except my shoes. But I’ve never been a ghost, because I’m afraid of ghosts. As luck would have it, I’m pretty sure one has moved in with my husband and me.

I always knew there was something a little different about me. Watches with dead batteries come back to life on my wrist, and I have premonitions that often come true. On the day of the Montauk Fire Department’s Big Bucks raffle a few years ago, I told my husband earlier on the day of the drawing that I was going to win. I told him we were going to win big, not the big prize of $50,000, but a big one nonetheless, and I did, I won $15,000. When the announcer called my name he prefaced it by saying “Montauk’s favorite reporter.” Of course, that’s a humble brag, and there are many who might disagree with that statement, but it sure made my winning even sweeter.

So why wouldn’t I have a ghost? Its presence is felt when things go bump in the night, doors slam, weird noises are heard from the kitchen, lights go on by themselves, and there are dark, dancing shadows in the living room at night. Most of these things probably all have reason behind them. The wind may have blown a door closed, the kitchen light never fully went off and recharged itself, and the kitchen noises could be from our refrigerator. But how do you explain how our black cat, which is brought in at bedtime, is sometimes found outside when we wake, waiting to get back in?

My ghost is playful, so not too scary. It likes to move things around and drive me crazy when I look for them. There are times when I know for sure I’ve left my sunglasses, which are like an appendage to me since I am sensitive to light, on the kitchen counter only to find them missing when I need them. I’ll search the house all over and afterward when I glance over to the counter there they’ll be, just where I left them.

Articles of clothing that I’ve folded neatly in a pile will be found strewn about the bedroom, with some of it missing and turning up days later right on top of the refolded pile. Sometimes my ghost comes in handy, and I kind of wish it had been around when I was younger, so I could’ve blamed my ghost for not doing my homework. “My ghost took it,” I’d tell the teacher.

My friends know about my ghost, so if they pay a surprise visit I can say, “Do you believe the mess my ghost made?”

When I was a little girl I had an attic bedroom and swear the Virgin Mary visited with me. I opened my eyes and there was an apparition in flowing blue robes. I took that to mean I was supposed to become a nun, but that whole celibacy thing didn’t work for me. And, of course, it could have just been my mother in a new nightgown.

My husband thought I was just being absentminded, but my ghost showed him. Like most men his age, he takes several medications. One day a few weeks ago, two bottles of meds that he had just refilled disappeared from the shelf where all his meds are stored. We checked with the pharmacy and sure enough he had picked them up and signed for them. Our wonderful pharmacist gave him a few days’ supply until we figured out what happened to them.

We searched the whole house and finally gave up, thinking somehow they were lost between the pharmacy and our house. Two days later, the two bottles of missing medications were front and center back on the shelf. They were not controlled substances, so we don’t think any kids were at play.

Do you need more proof? This is a good one. My cellphone charger, cord attached, is plugged into a socket in our bedroom, never leaves it. That is, until my ghost took it. Again, a household search and a half-hour spent trying to find out if any of the other phone chargers we owned would fit my phone. Two days later I’m in my backyard hanging linens on my clothesline (yes, I still do that, because I love sleeping with the smell of fresh air on my sheets and pillowcases), and there on the ground was my phone cord. Got goose bumps yet?

It’s odd that I can write about this because I’m such a scaredy-cat and writing about it makes it valid, somehow. I’ve written before about how when I was a child I slept with a big stick near my bed to protect myself — from what, I had no idea. But an online survey I recently took made it all clear. I learned that I was a man who was sacrificed to the gods in biblical times, which explains a lot. Deep in the recesses of my mind I guess I’m always waiting for an angry mob to come to my doorway out here in Montauk to offer me to the gods.

Tomorrow on Halloween, there will be mobs of kiddies knocking on my door, but I will be gracious and offer them a treat. If they’re nasty, I’ll invite them in to meet my invisible ghost, which should be willing to show itself on what I presume would be its favorite holiday. But if it does, I’ll be the first one running and screaming from my house.

Janis Hewitt is a senior writer at The Star and its Montauk correspondent.

Returning from an ever so brief visit to D.C., where we — Mary, I should say — baby-sat two grandchildren, and I tended largely to the basic needs of a pug who had a heavily bandaged foot (the result of a torn, bleeding toenail), we listened with fascination to NPR’s “TED Radio Hour” as scientists traced (ever so briefly) what’s been going on for the past 13.8 billion years.

I would say I prefer mind travel to the normal kind. In fact, as we were about to depart last Thursday from the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton, where Mary works two days a week, I told her hard-working boss, Penny Wright, that, at 743/4 it was all I could do to summon up the will to drive to Southampton.

Still, once at our daughter and son-in-law’s house in Kensington, Md., the next day, I drew out from the hall-length bookshelf Life magazine’s “Heaven on Earth” book with its colorful photos of 100 places one must see while on the planet. I didn’t see the Super 8 in Pennsville, N.J., in there, though I’d rank that very high.

We were in a relaxed mood, and my mind was untethered, at the Super 8. It was there that Mary told the clerk that some people had been stressed out to hear earlier that day that registration for the library’s yoga class was closed.

“Whaddya mean, it’s closed?” I chimed in, taking on the role of a stressed yoga registrant for the clerk’s amusement. “How’m I gonna relax for Chris’ sake?!”

That and Mary’s invariable sunny nature whenever dealing with other human beings, especially with other hard-working people, led to an upgrade to a suite, at a bargain-basement price.

The next morning, at the Cracker Barrel nearby, we learned there were no newspapers to be had. “That’s why they’re so happy here,” I said.

She spoke over country bacon and farm-fresh Grade A eggs and homemade country biscuits of an interesting novel she was reading about Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, who, in fictional form, was among the characters in “The Sun Also Rises.”

“I didn’t like that one at all,” I said. “They were all drunks and didn’t give a shit about anything.”

“Well, what were you like when you were 20?” said Mary.

“I was a drunk and didn’t give a shit about anything.”

The scientific lecturers I mentioned above — David Christian, Louise Leakey, and Spencer Wells — are of a contrary mind of course, to wit, that we should give a shit.

“ ‘Can we hold it together?’ ” Ms. Leakey asked at one point, after noting that her father had “so appropriately put it that we are certainly the only animal that makes conscious choices that are bad for our survival as a species.”

I would say that species-wise our grandchildren, based on our time with them this past weekend, are wonderfully evolved.

“I’ve had fun,” Jack, the 8-year-old, said, when Mary leaned over as we were watching the World Series and asked him what he thought of life so far.

“So have I,” I said to him, “and I hope you can say the same thing when you’re 743/4.”

“Barcelona . . . I’ve always wanted to go there,” Mary said as we looked at Life’s “Heaven on Earth” book. I duly reminded myself we’d have to go there some day.

But when on Monday morning we parted, she for a dental appointment, I for work, I found myself saying, “Remember, we’ll always have the Super 8.”

Mary has a most marvelous moth-eaten gray sweater that she loves. I’ve felt it and I know why, the tatters be damned.

The paint stains speak to me of the universe, the tear, resembling a hara-kiri cut, of the vagaries of life — in short of wonder, joy, and woe.

I told her recently as she sat reading on the deck that I envied her that sweater. Mine by contrast are not nearly as fine. I have one that is in the running, a dark blue cashmere one with a collar that is worn through at the elbows. It’s my favorite.

Why is it, we wonder, that we prefer the down-at-the-heels look when we know perfectly well that we can afford to buy brand-new athletic socks, warm-up pants, and sweatshirts. Our parents, children of the Depression all, were frugal. That may be part of it. We go around in rags to honor them. Nothing too much, that kind of thing.

Mary, of course, is beautiful whether she’s wearing her ratty gray sweatshirt or pearls. And indeed she does dress up when she goes to work — it’s the law. No jeans. I always look like Mr. Burns, the nuclear power plant owner in “The Simpsons,” no matter what I wear, so why try?

Ah, that’s it. Why try? Why try to keep up appearances when all — well, most everything — is vanity. And if it’s not vanity, it’s inanity, or, as seems to be ever more painfully evident these days, insanity.

That’s humanity: vanity, inanity, insanity. Pretty much sums it up. You might as well dress comfortably then. Unless you’re going to a wedding or a funeral, and even then I reserve the right to wear New Balance 991s. In appropriate black and gray of course.

The Star, as far as I know, doesn’t have a dress code, and so I’ve never felt sartorially constrained in any way. As a way of giving thanks perhaps my prose has always been neater than I am, though with distinctive quirks, I hope, like a comfortable ratty sweatshirt or holey cashmere sweater that you’ll never throw out, but will keep on wearing until the end of time.

If you’ve ever wondered who sits in the big bay window on the second floor of The Star’s office building, that would be me. It is a great perch to witness the life of the village throughout the seasons. Up in the treetops there are leaves budding, blooming, changing, and falling, sparrows peeping in, and the occasional cardinal.

While the natural world is closest at hand, the byproducts of the four-lane highway that is Main Street can be the most conspicuous. With windows open to catch the cross breeze on a warm day, the noise of the traffic alone, without the attendant beeping horns, occasional brake squeals, and muffled or shouted curses, can make phone interviews a major challenge. There are days when the wails of sirens are endless, whether they come from ambulances, fire trucks, or cop cars.

Sitting above a number of clumsy intersections also forces me to witness accidents. Fortunately, in my experience, all have been fender benders, but that blunt sound of metal-on-metal impact is never pleasant, and there is dread in looking. There are also egregious and creative violations of the posted traffic signs: left turns across three lanes, bikes on the wrong side of the street, ignorance of yield and stop signs, and — my favorite — the periodic, but regular, wrong-way ride down the one-way lane in front of Guild Hall’s entrance, a path that will someday lead to disaster.

Yet, there are the happier events to take in as well. The Memorial Day parade, the Bonac on Board to Wellness 5K. The installation and unveiling of the current season’s outdoor sculpture at Guild Hall is a process that can sometimes take days, using trucks, cranes, pulleys, and sheer brute force. This is followed by packing it up sometime between Labor Day and Columbus Day weekends.

Summer Fridays always provide an entertaining streetscape of tennis, equestrian, running, and paddleboard (fill in any other athletic pursuit here) togged individuals just off the court, horse, bay, Babette’s seat, et cetera. I see also the city folk fresh off the Jitney with their fedoras, wheelie bags, and four-inch heels mincing down the sidewalk, the Lilly-clad prepsters popping out of their Audi convertibles and ambling into the office in their espadrilles to pick up a paper. 

The drop-off days for Guild Hall’s Artist Members Show and the Clothesline Art Sale always provide highlights. The events attract a steady stream of creative types, who like attention and know how to attract it, while they “catch up” in line mere hours before they see each other again at some opening, and again the next night. Yes, we are watching you.

Still, this year’s clothesline sale came with a piece of performance art that had the entire office mesmerized. A woman holding a parking space by the entrance for her friend began a series of balletic contortions and tai chi movements to signal to those eager for the spot that they were to have none of it. Most heeded her pantomimes, but some gave her an audible piece of their mind. Around this point she took to her cellphone and we provided the dialogue, the “Where are you? How much farther? I can’t keep up with this much longer. Can you believe these people?”

It is at times like these that one wants desperately to return to the calendar, article, essay, or review at hand, eager to have a clean slate or lessened load for the weekend. But, it was hard to let go of this one. My co-workers witnessing it from above waited until finally the friend’s car was in view and the parking genie gesticulated her relief, guiding the car in to the slot ground-crew style until a grateful reunion ensued. Then, they went back to their desks. I, however, kept a periodic vigil, alert to any other curiosity, one eye on the computer screen and one on the street below.

Jennifer Landes is The Star’s arts editor.

Two houses, huge ones, are going up just south of the Ross Lower School on Butter Lane in Bridgehampton, but even pondering the fact that they are on what was supposed to be protected farmland did not dispel my happy mood as I drove away from the school’s field house after a yoga class. 

Sunday morning was bright and beautiful, with the temperature heading into the 60s. The roads were empty, the wind hadn’t kicked up yet, and I was propelled back to simpler times. 

Decades ago, my children went to the original Hampton Day School among the Butter Lane potato fields. There was no field house at the time, and the Day School is no more, but I thought of how lucky my kids were to go to school there, and I thought about other Sundays when the weather was autumnally spectacular. 

In days long gone, my husband led a small caravan of family and friends on mornings like this into the back woods or onto the beaches to commune with nature and each other. Even in fall, when it was apt to be windy, the mantra was, “Ev knows where to find a lee.” The picnics, cookouts, and assorted hijinks were fun. We set aside politics and war and whatever other bad news was brewing and let a sense of serenity reign. That’s what I was feeling on Sunday.

I was among the last to leave the field house and found myself driving very slowly. I was a bit bemused to think that I was not headed for an afternoon of camaraderie in the great outdoors, but for King Kullen. To soften the blow, I stopped first for a visit and a latte at Java Nation. 

Once upon a time, many of us considered a morning like this perfect sailing weather. If the wind became too strong, we knew how to reef and make the most of it. It was joyous to be at the tiller. There were October mornings on Napeague when the cranberries begged to be noticed. I liked to sit right down in the marshy spots to gather handfuls.

Of course, the news of the world was terrible on Sunday morning. It could not make anyone feel good. But I had a sense of calm and was aware of my own good luck in being where I was. 

The lyrics of the final song in Leonard Bernstein’s version of “Candide” have resonated since the Choral Society’s summer concert, in which I sang. On Sunday morning, I couldn’t get Voltaire’s words, or Bernstein’s music, out of my head. 

“. . . . Let us try,

Before we die,

To make some sense of life.

We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good

We’ll do the best we know.

We’ll build our house and chop our wood

And make our garden grow . . . 

And make our garden grow.”

The New York Times had an eyesore of a typo in a front-page headline recently, and — while it’s not very nice to take pleasure in someone else’s mistakes — I couldn’t help but feel a certain secret satisfaction. If the old reliable Times, with its large and talented staff, can put out an edition with such a glaring mistake (“Panic Were Ebola Risk Is Tiny,” it read, “Stoicism Where It’s Real”), then we at the humble East Hampton Star can ease up a bit. 

The blooper made by The Times, obviously, was to use the word “were,” which made no sense, instead of the intended word, “where.” But at least they got the apostrophe right. 

Like many people who have worked as proofreaders or copy editors, I’ve got an unshakeable habit of reading newspapers and magazines as if I were actually engaged in making corrections with a blue pencil.

Lately, I’ve been on the particular lookout for missing apostrophes. Spell check might work wonders on our spelling, but the English language is just too convoluted for these digitized prose-check nannies — so far, anyway — to be much help with more subtle corrections and suggestions. Spell check can’t always help you decide between “let’s” and “lets,” for example; sometimes, it just doesn’t know if you are trying to say “let us” or if you mean something like “He lets the orange tabby cat eat too much Whiskas.” 

Unfortunately, where apostrophes are concerned, I am also guilty: I leave them out when I am hurrying to send texts on my cellphone. My excuse is that I haven’t found an apostrophe on the little keyboard, but I admit it must surely be there somewhere. In any case, I have plenty of company in getting more lax about apostrophes. We’ve almost come to expect it. I don’t think any diner gets confused when a restaurant menu offers the “chefs choice.”

Is texting making us all more lazy? Or would our language evolve like this, regardless? (The end result, is seems to me, is that the writer seems to increasingly rely on readers to figure out for themselves what is intended, even when what has been printed is wrong.)

Now, let’s consider words that combine the letters “I,” “T,” and “S.” Reading with a critical eye, you will inevitably find “its” and “it’s” mixed up all over the place these days. Everyone with an elementary school education in this country should know that “it’s” is a contraction meaning “it is,” while “its” is a possessive . . . but, judging by the reigning confusion, apparently, most Americans were napping during that class. 

Does all this matter? It does to me.

Obviously, our language is now and has always been in flux, but for me, things today are changing too quickly. I  blame the digital age. Everything is speeding up: News travels from New York to Beijing, documents zing from computer to computer, trades are made on Wall Street in a thousandth of the blink of an eye. Children, even, seem to be putative teenagers before they hit 13. 

Maybe, when it comes to language, I’m succumbing to the conservatism that — in the popular quote attributed, no doubt apocryphally, to Winston Churchill — comes with age. But even so, I still think we should attend carefully to changes in things we hold dear, and the proper use of language is certainly one of those to me.

“What is God?” my daughter asked me a few months ago. Not, “Does God exist?” Not, “Do you believe in God?” More like, “What is this God that people speak of?” Since then, the questions have tumbled in like waves breaking on the shore.

“What is heaven?” “What happens when you die?” “What does God look like?” “How can Santa know if every kid in the world is good or bad?” All the basics and then some. It’s hard to answer some questions when you’re not sure yourself. The phrase “Some people believe . . .” has helped me begin to explain the religious and spiritual realms to her, but it’s going to take a lot more study and thought to get the words right. This is a journey we’re on together; saying “It’s complicated” would be too much of a cop­out.

My mother was brought up Catholic; my father is a Jew who loves Christmas. We had High Holy Days and Passover with his family, celebrated Easter with the Easter Bunny and Christmas with Santa Claus, and I never set foot in a church with worshippers until I was much older. I dropped out of Bible camp and Hebrew school. My husband was, as he says, politely asked to leave Catholic school.

I never adopted an organized religion, though it might have been easier if I had. Still, I value faith, am moved by religious observance, and have a deep respect — awe even — for those who live through their faith to make their communities and their world a better place.

I believe in science, and to me, the wonders of science are so miraculous I can’t help but believe in God — that spring comes, that my two children grew inside of me, that my husband was cured of Hodgkin’s disease so that he, we, could live to make those children. Thank you, Chemistry and Biology. Thank you, Modern Medicine. Thank you, God.

My regular places of worship are all outside — the Stony Hill Woods, the Montauk bluffs, the Walking Dunes, Quail Hill Farm. I see God through my children; I worship the way their minds awaken to grasp the small elements of our world at work. My daughter’s question is one she answers for me every day.

These are my blessings: the sticks and pebbles my son saves for me each day from the playground at school, a bouquet of fall leaves collected especially for me, the notes from my daughter as she learns to shape letters into words, a picture of the two of us playing together, the sound of her reading aloud. Let’s start with that.

Carissa Katz is The Star’s managing editor.