20250411

My dad still starts with the time, the place, the weather, when he's leaving a message on voicemail. I used to think it was a habit left over from when those messages were left on an answering machine, on magnetic tape, without metadata.

It feels to me now like a ... signpost? Quantum coordinates? It's him saying "hey, it's me, but more specifically than that it's me as I exist in this place, at this time, when the sun and the clouds are just so, this is who I'm being right now, the trees and the soil below and me 🤲". The color lets me join that specific version of him, as he stands in that eternal now.

It occurs to me now that his messages might also include something about where he imagines I might be when I hear this... If that's the case, then as he thinks of the me-that-listens, and as I think of the him-that-speaks, we experience shared presence without fighting time and space.

This is my dad who speaks of his role in my future (or yours) in terms of "I would" — neither binding you to nor excluding you from an outcome, but letting you know where you can find him in the probability-space ahead.

Fast-paced card games were hard for him. I'm sorry for making that harder, Dad.

In the days I experience as present, your farmer's heart has been elevated to serve entire continents.

Thank you for caring for the soil.

🌱 🥔