i have a fear of i know not what

i have a fear of i know not what

not a fear of not knowing, though i have that too, obviously,

but of starting to write,
of finishing,
publishing,
doing the thing because of what may come.

it’s weird to admit this, given how much time i have spent acting oppositely, sometimes even believing it.

one thing i will miss and that i want to cherish, now, forever, is how my 4yo son has no concept of personal space and thus is okay with my face 0.1 mm away from his, staring at him as he finds junebug on every page of richard scarry’s book.

i marvel how he doesn’t realize i’m staring, doesn’t find it annoying, doesn’t feel the shame yet of being seen like i do, like we all do, this supreme discomfort of feeling known

then there’s our 2yo daughter emma june

i want to save every little word she says and how she says it into a voice recorder. Naahcee. Sowwy dada, she says, too often, like her parents

or how after eating she’ll say yahmee

yahmee in my tahmee

all these words that feel hebrew,
like ancient ways of saying god

Last night Lauren was out so i handled both of the kids’ bedtimes, and afterwards i started panicking that they weren’t breathing so i went into each room to check and put my hand up to their tahmees and it struck me how small they both were.

especially emma june. She is a presence. She is the room and so is he and together they are the universe.

but there sleeping, face turned away, a dumpling in her dark blue sleep suit, I remember that she’s a dollop. A smidge. A nug if i’ve ever seen one.

Him too., though he bucks the trend daily, sitting there on his little spot in the corner of the couch and dominates it with his frame, the body that cries out for more bread NO NOT THAT BREAD THE BAGEL NO NOT THAT BAGEL THE OTHER ONE WITH THE CRUST AND BUTTER

PLEASE

I will miss all this, yet I will sleep good knowing I have not missed it. I’m here, face too close, taking in the big breaths of the little people who fill the space of my world.

i don’t want to forget the things my parents say either
their little what-have-yous

like how my dad says ‘army strong’ because he heard it once in a commercial

or my mom, after suggesting i do something super obvious like take tylenol, which I KNOW MOM, how in response to that she’ll raise her shoulders and look at my dad and say “Ok? I didn’t know that’s why i said it”

or how, when they offer help, they’ll both say in their thick beautiful russian accents, “shoulder to shoulder”

the other day i asked for help
from someone i’d admired
an internet friend

hey, i texted, can you help me?
i didn’t say that exactly, but that’s what i meant

all good if you can’t.
i’m honestly not sure why i asked
sorry
if you want we can pretend i never asked and i’ll throw my phone in the river

yes, the person said, i can help
and so we talked
and they listened
and i hated it
because i didn’t want to sit there in it

why? they asked, with silent kindness, not letting me tazman devil
my way out
with my jokes and ideas

i don’t know

they kept looking at me
and i kept not looking back

i thought i was past all this, i said

you have no idea how often i hear that, they said

and perhaps this is why
it is so hard to stand so close to one another
cheek to cheek

because we have tried
and failed
inevitably, not getting exactly what we needed
because how could we

yet still
we ask
and
still
sometimes
we receive

becoming for each other the words for god
we’ve long forgot that we’ve forgotten

i don’t have to throw my phone into the river
i’m already there
with my brood
shoulder to shoulder
cheek to cheek

—

1. how are you? i miss y’all

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