Still here

V made an extra toast long after midnight, her glass raised high in the kitchen, her eyes wide open.

“To really live before we die.” She said, in a calm voice.

I cannot imagine she is still six, with such direct advice as I sit at a wobbly chair and stare back at her, as if she has opened my chest and holds my heart in her tiny hands. Our glasses bang against each other.

“Yes.” I say. “Yes, kiddo.”

Then she skips out of the room, more lamb than girl.

I think of the book that will finally be published this year. There is a pile of final pages that I am checking, the occasional blot of bright blue ink where I find a little something to fix. It is like a plane parked at the end of a terribly long runway, in line to take off but far from flying. It is a heart carved into a tree that someone may pass and smile a little smile, wondering why they never did such a thing. It is all I witnessed and remembered from a former life, more old movie than actual history crammed with mysterious taxi rides and broken-down Chevrolets, of summer jobs, drinking whiskey in a hot kitchen not like this one, this bird’s nest that looks out at snow and tree limbs, crows flying back and forth cackling at their fortune.

Yes, still here.

Still alive, trying to be more than just living.