“I want to stick my net into time and say ‘now’ as men plant flags on the ice and snow and say ‘here’.” - Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  

To parent a child is like looking for a line within a circle.  I try so hard to plant my flags.  To document the details, to distinguish the befores and afters:  Today he holds a spoon.  Today he climbs the stairs.  Today he lets go of my breast.  Today he grabs hold of my hand.  Today.  Here.  Now.  Look.  But it’s futile.  Time is laughing at me.  I am trying to control it - with notebooks and photo albums - to hold it in my hand as I hold him in my arms and held him in my belly.  

It is an exercise in faith:  to stop grabbing for sharp corners and merely stand by, bear witness, notice and let go.


“Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

“Taking notice of the world as we pass through it, the world [all the while] taking no notice of us.  […] There’s a strange comfort in that.”  - Karl Ove Knausgaard


words for this blog.