Ephemerality
Composition Posted: 896 words
Writing again after a long time away is like unsticking a drain; something I’m familiar with after bailing wildly at four in the morning on the 4th of July, as water poured in over my basement threshold. In my case, the drain never came unstuck. It was up to me to move the water, and it was up to God to answer my prayers for the rain to stop. It did, at 6:30 in the morning, an hour earlier than it was forecasted to. I’ll take it.
They say that you hate what comes out first — just like a drain, it’s sludge to begin with, and then the water begins to flow free and cool. Sometimes it’s all sludge, and sometimes I wonder if I’ve ever written anything that’s not sludge. Maybe this has all been a long sludge-unsticking process. Maybe the sludge won’t stop within my lifetime.
Currahee was mostly written before the first Z came along, and then just after the second Z was born, it was finished. And there it sits, the latest thing I’ve done — strike that, the only creative thing I’ve completed — since my son was born, my son who is now one. Lately, the art or lack thereof is born of parenting these kids. Getting their teeth brushed, scrambling to wash dishes after they’re in bed is the symphony I compose.
My children will grow up with more documentation of their existence than any children before them — just as I grew up with more pictures and home videos than my parents had. And them? Their super 8 tapes were revolutionary to their parents and grandparents and great grandparents. Our chain goes back to burry, silent movies and all the way forwards again to minute-by-minute iPhone shots.
It’s all here “forever,” or so they say. “You’re never forgotten on the internet,” and large corporations know more about my kids than I’d like them to. But what’s forever? I accidentally deleted 2,000 pictures off a client’s personal blog at work. 2006-2024, you think they’re there forever, and then *boom,* you’re scraping the internet archive for the remnants.
Will my own creations be as short-lived? What about a house fire? Theft? What mementos are any of us entitled to of our family and special moments? Why shouldn’t Apple snap its fingers and wipe away our lifetime from iCloud? If we’re not helping the profit margins, why shouldn’t they?
None of it is here to last. Even the work that I sweated over in my yard today will not last. The backbreaking waterproofing and concrete laying will not last, just like the patio that I jackhammered last week faded away. Somebody else put their back into that work, and it made it 70 years. May the work that I put into my children each week make it as long.
Will they remember all the hopes and dreams I prayed for them as I tried to rock them to sleep as they were sick? Will they remember the traumas and the pains that I wasn’t able to protect them from? Will we do enough? All I can do is wake up every morning and try to answer the question. God, I pray that they don’t just remember the work and the sweat that I put into their lives. I pray that they don’t only remember that I provided them with clean laundry. Help them to remember the prayers and the tears and the love. Help me to express that to them each day, instead of snapping at them for leaving dirty clothes on the floor of the bathroom (again).
Why do I show up to work at all, when there are people being knit together in front of my eyes? There’s magic happening, and it’s not on my computer. Why do I stare at this laptop screen when the true wonders are in front of me?
Why did I ever let myself get out of practice with writing? Why did I write so little about these times? It’s not too late (there’s a third Z on the way), and I find myself reinvigorated, not by the promise of some new web technology, but by the promise of writing it all down. Of capturing this somehow, leaving something to my kids when I am gone. The web is just about the worst place I can think to leave that. Even the Internet Archive is not eternal, as recent events have shown.
Nothing that I do at my day job matters in the long term. Most of the work I did in my first year at this company is gone. All of the work I did in the first year of my career is gone. How freeing would it be to throw this Macbook Air into a pond?
Writing and kids are the best chance I’ll have to leave something behind that will be worthwhile. So, I write, I change diapers, and for now, I punch a clock and take home a check. At night, I dream of writing, and my kids, strong and grown and thriving.
When my flesh, it shall fail, and my work here is done,
— “Break Us,” Songs of Lament, by BiFrost Arts
And the heavens and earth are remade,
Though I sowed here in sorrow
It will be glorious tomorrow
He’ll remake it by the power of His grace!