Here we are you and I, standing at the edge of the world. And now, especially, it feels bleaker than the bleakest science fiction novels. Divided, greed-choked, truthless, tech-addled, insane.
And yet, amazingly, there you are, sitting on the tree-swing, chatting away. I can only really hear what you say when you come back to me from swinging out wide and I reach out to give you a push. I piece together the rest. For some reason the tree-swing is where all your thoughts come out. On the tree-swing you talk a blue streak.
Today, you have a fever. And Mark is working on the house. You narrate to me that he is a good worker. And careful. He is careful not to let the sparks from the circular saw burn the house, you observe. And the old bed that I have put outside: you tell me it will not be part of the tree house but will be part of the double decker bus. These are things that we are building, you and I. Out of junk and parts and whatever we can gather. If only in our minds. Right now, the main thing we have.
The trees are turning yellow and there is a warm breeze blowing the leaves off the roof and all around in crazy circles and Mark has cut a big hole in the back wall of the house. You get off the swing and walk back to the house in your spiderman slippers through broken lumber and chunks of drywall and sawdust and the sun is reflecting off your hair and I command myself, “remember this.”
It’s easy to go around like other things are real, are happening, and this, this just is. Other things are exciting, outrageous, infuriating, desperately sad. They are out there, in the digital space, where celebrities live with thought leaders and trend setters and fear mongers and all the people who remind us we are each moment falling desperately behind. It’s easy to disappear the normalness of you and your fever and me in my day off work making banana bread and decidedly not cleaning the house again. These are just in between moments, and we are just normal people, just saps. Tomorrow, there will be shocking revelations, October surprises, commentary, memes.
It’s easy to go around that way, easy but it’s wrong. You, now cuddled up to me on the couch with your hot skin, the refrigerator running and the lingering smell of banana bread, the fly buzzing around the lamp, these are the only real things.
Little Bug 