Your father still writes on his laptop like it was a 1970s era typewriter, one index finger at a time, emphatically recoiling inches off the keyboard with each strike. It's perhaps his most endearing feature, hundreds of thousands of words written in this way, at the speed of any modern assistant's record. When he stares at that spot just out of sight and tells you I just fear I'm running out of time and I haven't told all my stories yet, it's the closest you ever get to each other.
At the bookstore, the unclearly gendered barista tells you they turned off their Wi-Fi. It's 2023 now, they say in a way that you couldn't possibly be mad about. The café is quiet, a welcome peace on a Thursday morning after a day of monsoon winter rains. The sun rose like March, birds ignorant to the calendar, they say it's the longest New York has gone without snow in centuries, and you know it means we are all about to die, but it's so hard to despair. A bookstore without Wi-Fi, a Thursday morning without panic, the light sing-songs of creative swirls unfettered by inbox dings. I know you've been having a hard time lately, but I have to believe we will make it through, I have to believe spring will return, because if I did not, what on earth would be the point of any of it.
My keyboard taps are just as loud as my father's, despite my correct finger placement, despite my coming into computer literacy in the 1990s, they echo through the bookstore like I have not a moment to lose, like I have to punch all these words into the ether before it is too late.
I haven't told all my stories yet.
But I have to believe one day
I will.
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