(click below for the audio)

pure joy (from CUTTING TEETH)

It should be handwritten. Inked to paper. Set aside. Left for them to read—if they ever choose to read and learn to know how it used to be—but it has been a long time, another great distance, and when mood and moment synch there is often no other way than this.

Trying key after key.

Hunting and pecking until the letters meet, relate, make some sense, and push us.

On.

To unlock.

The next moment. So we are clean and clear. Interested in this time.

The now.

Our small existence. In this small town. Where we live a life so simple and rich, so free and connected to the earth, that there is nothing about it that can be believed.

My kids are healthy. Happy. And they make me see that I am important. Somebody. I am the strongest. The smartest. The fastest. And there is nobody that can hug or help or love like me. Except Mommy. And she, I’ll admit, is better than me.

At patience.

Consistency.

Softness.

Beauty.

The artful act of pure joy.

And because she has given them to me—our boy and our girl—it seems there is nothing I’ll ever be able to do to make her know how much she means to me.

I cannot birth babies.

Paint pictures.

Make sushi.

Mediate.

Keep the faith.

Bring as much good to the world as she does.

And still, she loves me.

To know this, to experience it, is amazing.

I have come a long way in a short while. I am lucky to be alive. The fists, the fights, the self-imposed, self-destructive nights after nights after nights have somehow landed me here. Home. Deep into the place I never knew I could be.

So worthy of words.

Handwritten. Inked to paper. And set aside. For when my endurance has run out and I am only stacks of pages left for you to read. Letter strung to letter. Key meeting key. So that you will know how it used to be.

~ K.J.