You had to be there

A blog like this can accomplish, I suppose, a few useful ends: it can let curious grandparents know that Cleo's been healthy for a full week now, or give them a look at her new haircut; it can give me practice in writing short-form prose; it can perhaps console the lonely Russian who spends her nights Googling "Ruskin + toddler" by giving her a hit or two. And, I want to say, it can serve as a sort of journal, to which I, or my daughter, might return in a few years, to remember how, exactly, we spent these years together. But in that sense, I know that it will fail.

The image above is a detail of a poster that Cleo and I saw after a walk through the lovely gardens of Kirstenbosch. It nudged me into a brief melancholy, and I think I can say why: the realization that the poster pointed toward an evening of sound that will never again be heard seemed a sobering one. We gather, we make music and enjoy, and we scatter. The instruments sing their songs, and are then put aside - and all that remains is a poster. Or a blog.

Or perhaps, say the optimists, a memory? Yes: that too. But memories are hardly more permanent than these letters. Instead, the lesson seems to be this very familiar commandment: enjoy the current moment, the day at hand, the winding path through Kirstenbosch beneath your feet. Enjoy it, because future residues will never - though they may be enjoyable in their own way, in their own moments - reflect it fully.