As I examine the world around me, as I examine the history I’m given, as I examine my own memories, so many holes in the narrative are revealed.

I know my memory to be flawed, and I recognize the unthinking, and intentional, omissions of recent and past histories.

But those absences are teeming with truths that are hidden, lost, or impossible to know.

I reach for the tangled, pregnant absences and try to pull out what is obscured, but it’s not always intelligible to me.
I plumb the gaps and try to make sense of what I’ve discovered.

And always, in those gaps, when I cannot know (can I ever know?)

I try to at least leave kindness.

A handmade patch in the fabric of knowing, one that speaks to the absence, with care.