Tomorrow

Just start

Tomorrow

Saint Joseph, I’m not asking you to tell me what I am. Not writer, not father, not the one building something from nothing. I’m asking you for something else, simpler and harder: that tomorrow I sit back down at the table.

You carried a mystery you didn’t choose and still you stayed, day after day, hands full of sawdust, building something that wasn’t yours for a son who wasn’t quite yours either.

I have a small table by the window. The notebook closed for weeks now, coffee going cold while I check something else, my phone with twenty things pending and none of them with my name on it.

So I’m not asking for purpose. I’m asking for habit. That tomorrow, whatever the day brings, I pull out the chair, open the notebook even for one line, even with a shaking hand, even if nothing good comes out.

I don’t know if my mission is writing. I don’t know if it’s being a father, or building something out of nothing. But I know you didn’t ask that much either. You just took the wood you had and sanded it down until it stopped splintering.

So tomorrow, Saint Joseph, put your hand on my back when I sit down. Not so I write well. Just so I write. Because you don’t get closer to God by figuring out who you are. You get closer with sawdust still on your hands, sitting down again at the same table.

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