שנה טובה Shana Tova

Being there

My dear boy,

I know, you want to hold my hand. You want me to play with you, to explain to you, to be fully and completely with you, wholeheartedly. Yet I am partly absent. I'm sitting on the computer writing to the future you instead of playing with you and drawing for you, and with you, right now. I want to be, so so much...

The truth is, everyday I think of how to explain to you what we're doing right now. Where we were and where we are going, and why. Where do I start? Should I draw about the present? the past? the imagined? Should I dive into a fantasy world, connecting mine to your own, newly invented, characters and stories? Or should I go back to the start, tell you about history - and if I do, should I go one generation back, two generations, three...? One side, the other side, both...? my point of view, or yours?

I think about these things every day. I have ideas of words and drawings. Then I think of the other people I love, my friends and family. Then of a larger circle of acquaintances... So much to tell and to so many people - and then I'm off in my own world and not quite there, connecting to yours. Slightly ironic, isn't it? Trying to connect to you makes me disconnect.

I get overwhelmed by these thoughts and then I just cannot figure out where and how to start. So I stop, I just play or laugh with you. Or work while your Papa plays with you, and I wait for another day. Tomorrow... Next week... Next time.

We're both starting something new. A new place, new friends. Trying not to lose touch with home, with why and what. I'm scared too. I have my own dinosaurs and monsters and lions to be scared of, and to tackle. I want to be strong. To hold your hand firmly and fully be there with you. But I'm not. I cannot. I cannot always hold your hand.

So, for now, I let you draw with me instead. I let your lines be the basis for my ground. I let you look with me into an unclear and blurry future. Trying to be there, trying to hold your hand, but not quite, not always there, not entirely. I let myself show a sketch, my vulnerable visual searches, to the world... Maybe that's what I can give to you right now; It's ok to not know. It's ok to be a little vulnerable. I'm still constantly, somehow, there.