come with coming home; the refrigerator and pantry shelves will be empty but for milk, tortillas, cereal, and coffee, and I will take to living on milky coffee all day the first day home while I clear a workspace and make just enough room at Trystan's desk (among a Spiderman slipper, Uno cards, It's a Big Big World atlas, and a drum I gave him four years ago at Christmas) to write: I slept on a twin last night in a room painted purple and discover first thing in the morning that foolproof babyproofing (half-inch dowel sticks run through chest-of-drawer and cabinet handles) is very hard on bare toes: I broke a jar of powdered ice tea in the garage while reaching for a bottle of something else and know this as a consequence of the conditions of coming home: I will stub my toes, step on toys, make room to sit: I will still be mystified about the lack of food in a household that eats three times a day and more on the weekend: I will pay my fullest attention to questions I cannot answer (and thus it is that the age of five is the wisdom of showing one's elders the fall into unknowing): why? and why? and why why? and why? I don't know, I say. The little mesquite tree outside this window has at last become a tree. And the sun, baby, lemme tell you. This is the land of the sun.
I'm in a t-shirt and shorts.
The family outgrows this house; today is moving day. I want more coffee but am reluctant to find everything necessary to make it. Could take longer than a few minutes. Tea is impossible. The stove is apart for cleaning. I think of cleaning. But I have reading and thinking to do. I promised myself reading and writing and long walks in the sun.
