There are days of a perfect material harmony, a lone empty parking spot in front of the restaurant, some undefinable craving easily met by a special on the menu, sitting on a patio and closing down the bar, an orange sky, refraction, the memory of the word, learned in an 8th grade science class. Refraction, what I always think to an orange sky. But as I get older, I realize that even this, a material harmony, a bodily rhythm with the world isn't enough. Happiness is still simple, but displacement is infinitely more complicated.

Sometimes I wonder about the purpose of writing. Of seeking a narrative. When I was little, I liked the idea of a mobile home, a sanctuary that you take with you. But what I really wanted was to know why anyone should ever have to leave the comfort of the womb. On The Sopranos, Tony tells Dr. Melfi about his experience with Peyote. "Our mothers are like a bus. They drop us off and then go off in their own direction, on their own journey, but we spend the rest of our lives trying to get back on that bus," was what he realized. I should do Peyote. I should do a great many things.

This made me think that maybe the mere act of having a child is a kind of selfish cruelty. I know this stems from my innate fear of damaging things, or people. It takes a certain amount of confidence in yourself to have a child. Or a kind of basic ignorance or avoidance of who you are. I always wanted a preparedness in myself before I had a child. It's not that I doubt my ability to nurture; this I know I can do. Or to provide, or listen or play or protect or support. It's that I don't know what I'll do in those moments where I don't have answers for my children. It's that I worry for the moments that they'll sense those gaps in me, that I can't offer them the keys to be well-adjusted. It's that I won't be able to offer them any sort of solution to ambivalence. And what's the point of bringing something wide-eyed and hopeful into a world and then watching it face the various uncertainties of this life when I don't fully understand what purpose those uncertainties serve? And those who think this builds strength and character are deluding themselves. Perhaps it does, but so what? Enough about growth, about character, about moulding yourself about journey about evolution, about time and maturity and hardship and delayed rewards. I don't know what I believe, or I do, but it all seems irrelevant and so why would I pass it on, like a set of bad genes?

I don't know why people write. I don't know why people have kids. The world is overpopulated anyway. And sometimes I just want to be left alone.