Words. Words are powerful. Words are imaginary and yet…wherever they are, there you are. I watch my son become indoctrinated by our language and I mourn for the self that disappears each day, the self beyond words that is so difficult to grasp as an adult. I know verbal language helps us incorporate into the world of humankind but it distances us from the world of the mystic, the world of the dream, the world of the unconscious. Sometimes I wonder about the treasure of his mind, the unformed clay…like the beaches of Southern California before the Spaniards spewed their Christian indoctrination of man as the dominant of all G-d’s creatures, before oil rigging, before surfing, before time. What did it look like? What do they look like? But as I speak, he mimics my speech in that fundamentally human way and the waves crash and break and change the shoreline, leaving a mark of the timeless present. Will he have any memory of it?

I have no memory of my life before words. What remains is the 8mm movies, the pictures, the memories of my parents and that is all. What will he recall? Memory can be a trap or a gift. I hope it is always a gift for mon cheri.