I’m not worried about what lies above,

I am concerned with what emerges.

How meaning comes to be.

How lines and dots and shadow

come to resemble memories

that fade

and are extinguished once you’re gone.

Maybe it's ironic that toward the end of my academic career, I was fighting tooth and nail to dismiss with subjective rating scales of parenting quality, and focus on the moment-to-moment behaviours, without judgments or messages. Or maybe it's telling.