Not even a year and a half, my son tries my shoes on for size. He defends everyone, doesn’t like it when one of us yells at the other. He is constantly smiling. When you tell him, he slowly grins and does it anyway, saying ‘no’ in return. Amused and unselfconscious, a new treasure.

So much more than this, the sliver of her smile, the crack of the bat, the lip snagged on the thorn. The dub of paint beaded along the frame, the gathered lint in the crook of his elbow, her breath when she pushes him out, the stain of something broken, the pain of the needle pricking his eye. The light breaking gathered curtains, the smell of pork burned in the summer, his laughter as they cuff him away. The windshield breaking in the night, his cigarette doused in the rain, the feel of the brick against her cheek. So much more than this, all of it lost, never too sure, nothing ever quite complete, accept the sweat on his brow and my hand and the shudder of his last breath.

We are all drawn by habitual patterns of remorse. The way her hair gets caught in her mouth. The way his scorn turns into a smile. The way my fingers lose their sense of touch while I sleep. We are all drawn by an unsteady sound, with pitches and tremelos, discordant but somehow still a tune we tap our feet to. And this, and this.

To lose, lost, wordlessness, to have nothing, nothing to say is,kt nothing to lose, it is being lost, words define place and time, situate you firmly, you are here, this place, it is recognizable, it has meaning. To have nothing to say is to be nowhere.

And of course it comes as our vacation ends but buys us another day. However we are iced up, slick and treacherous. Bundled inside with children who are at once poignant and comical. My son’s gaze is open and pure, my daughter’s smile striking and innocent, my wife’s voice gentle and warm. Even in the thick of it, of financial woes and impending doom, I am a very, very rich man.

Little one, how did you get here?
You’ve gone from baby to toddler to child. I look at you and am amazed: you are contained, you are already your very own person: you think, you feel, you move. It is a very difficult thing to explain. You are a wonder, in many ways, you are a miracle of happenstance. Somehow you have arrived and are ready to go at the same time.
And here we are, lost in the dust you will surely leave behind.

Joris had said, years ago but it’s like yesterday, when they start getting it steady, that’s when the real writers emerge.
And I’ve always been haunted by that, struggling as I was, living with my future wife, that I was one of those, those that dabbled with writing because they were lonely, but then, then there are the moments that it spews out of me, some turn of phrase, some image, and it becomes some thing: foreign and beautiful and complete.

I’ve always had a penchant for turning away: it was after all the easiest thing in the world to do, a swivel of the hips, perhaps one last look, then gone.