New Beginnings and Continuations

An excerpt from a letter I'm writing Berkeley. Life shall not sit still, even if you chain it to a chair.

"Lately you've grown fond of trains and tunnels. You want to watch videos of trains all day long and if anything hints at being a makeshift tunnel you're under it without a second thought. Someone on the floor with a pair of legs bent in the shape of an A? Tunnel! Tomorrow we approach a big day: your first day of preschool. We'll ride upon our own metaphorical train into a new tunnel. We don't know what exactly is in it or where it exactly leads. We cling to each other (me more than you) in excitement, sadness, joy, apprehension, and hope. We enter a little family of three. Who knows how we exit. You'll start learning things, many things, not from the words and examples of your parents but from people who are now strangers but whom we presume we'll eventually love. In a broad since our family grows. Which is a good thing. But we send you out into the world now, the first taste of our little girl leaving home. And I'm stuck on that sentence. My Little Joy, one day I'll miss you so much."

The Number Ten

10 (ten i/ˈtɛn/) is an even natural number following 9 and preceding 11. Ten is the base of the decimal numeral system, by far the most common system of denoting numbers in both spoken and written language. The reason for the choice of ten is assumed to be that humans have ten fingers (digits) and because it's the number of years Robyn and I have been married.

 A list of 10.

1. Yes, of course 
2. Tatanka
3. Morgan
4. Wandering through an all but nameless town in Turkey. Trading Trader Joe's fruit strips for slices of watermelon. Agreeing with the only English words the local children knew: Bush bad.
5. All the moments a mind can't recall but that still matter, the little things that shape our lives. 
6. Struggling for and against ones own religion.
7. Waking up one morning and remembering how the woman laying next to me is related to that girl who stole my heart when I was seventeen. You can't draw a map like that.*
8. 2+1=infinity
9. Seeing Robyn, plainly, in the face of our child. It's like experiencing her childhood somehow; filling in the gaps, all the parts of her life I missed out on. This is as close as I'll get to those.
10. Yes, ten more please. 

*We were talking the other day and Robyn was recounting major parts of our courtship. She recalled so many details that I'd forgotten. Important details, things of major significance to her. Things I've done that count as reasons why she loves me. Prior to that I was reading through some old notes I'd written her. More temporarily lost details. Between the two of us we could likely piece together the major events, the whys and hows and whens. But they wouldn't add up to 3.15569e8 seconds or 5.259e6 minutes or 87658 hours. There would be so much missing and yet here we are, like a map to a pirate's treasure with everything torn away except the X that marks the spot.

So for all the best moments that I can both recall and that I've forgotten, I give thanks to a wife beyond what I likely deserve. Let us dig deep into the sand where we stand; let us unearth family, little children, long life, happiness, good health, and eternal love, together. You're the best Mrs. Robyn Kessler, happy tenth anniversary. 

Shawn