this morning

yesterday

this morning

yesterday

This morning a very loose tooth came out — the first baby tooth lost from my little girl’s mouth. She was thrilled and yet it was strange. When would the new tooth grow in? When would the next tooth come out? What to do with the teeny-tiny tooth? After some deliberation, she went back upstairs and put it under her pillow.

I felt something the same yesterday. My new book arrived in the mail. I wanted to celebrate. I took goofy photos. I was thrilled and yet it was strange. Part of me didn’t want to read the words on the page. So final. So done. I think that publishing a book is the end of something. It’s the end of what the book could have been (because isn’t there always room for tweaks and improvements? though tweaks and improvements can so easily spin out of control and become hacks and confusions). But, still. It’s the end of that singular imaginative process.

This morning, my little girl lost her first tooth. Momentous. This morning, I stood by the stove, hair wet from my morning swim, and I opened my book and I started to read the words on the page. Momentous. I didn’t want to stop reading and the porridge was late getting made. I read with trepidation and some distance, wondering what the words would reveal that I never intended them to, wondering how to let go. Part of me wants to take the book upstairs and put it under my pillow. Oh, for the simple and magical exchange of tooth for coin, old for new. Gentle passage.

If publishing is the end of something, it is also the beginning of something else. Like Fooey, I am asking: What happens now? What happens next? What does the tooth fairy do with all those teeth?