It’s been a hot minute, years really.
Ten of them.
That’s an embarrassing number.
I expected more of myself.
Ten intervening years and memory went quiet.
Ten intervening years and feeling went quiet.
Ten intervening years and my voice went quiet.
Ten intervening years delivered revelations.
My wife is powerful and wise.
My children are remarkable.
I am a lucky man.
In that order.
Ten intervening years delivered humility and existential crises:
A pandemic.
Tenuous employment.
A technology that threatens to obviate my professional existence.
A government that murders its citizenry with impunity.
In ten intervening years I fear that I’ve forgotten more than I remember.
I worry that my failing eyes are only the beginning.
I have less certainty about my future.
Less vanity, too.
But not less clarity.
Not about who I love.
Not about the obligation of a citizen.
Not about right and wrong.
My voice went quiet but did not disappear.
I can hear it again.
It’s time to use it.