The art of leaving home

The pleasure of moving is the excavation of the past. I open a box and here’s a photo of my fifth-grade class, the eager neatly-combed-and-dressed boy with glasses sitting behind John Poate is me. I am still that eager boy, heavier but anxious to do well. There is a letter from a fan of my radio show, “Every Saturday at 5 p.m., everything else ceased and we gathered around the radio.” Also, in a brown envelope, eight color photographs of my innards taken by the surgical team that installed a pig valve in my heart: the valve is pale pink, the innards are dark red. And there is a letter from a beloved aunt in 1995, reproaching me for traveling to Rome with my fiancée, engaging no doubt in premarital sex, embarking on a path of philandering and adultery, for which there would be no forgiveness. It’s a powerful articulate letter and I admire her for writing it, which she did out of love.