Making D

                  It may have begun with the hailst  nes, getting cl  cked   n the head a few times. I was taking my bel  ved mutt Br  nk   (my wife calls him Br  nx, I call him ‘the M  nx’)   n an aftern    n walk, first   f July, and—  ut   f the blue, as the sky had been that regular hue until grayness slid in—a halcy  n drizzle turned int   hail, marble and g  lfball in size.

                  Well, they say it’s unwise t   run thr  ugh a st  rm, and maybe my strides met the m  nstr  us ice twice as hard, while the M  nx (less f    lish than me) s  ught refuge under a tree. I circled r  und and we waited it   ut, a little c  ncerned what was happening. Strange blips   f th  ught escaping my mind, but then, trying t   speak, phrases weren’t right—they were s  mewhat unr  unded—and the M  nx l    ked at me questi  ningly, as if the st  rm had suddenly entered my being.

                  Czechs call them krup bití, these hailst  nes, and man! d   they beat d  wn a day—a matter   f minutes, then melt away. In Guadalajara, I heard, the iceballs stacked up and turned int   slush, 1.5 meters deep. I w  ndered h  w they were making d  , thinking and speaking en españ  l… I wish I c  uld be there right n  w, feel less disj  inted, receiving less ‘c  me again?’ stares.

                  Faithful, as ever, the M  nx let me practice my utterance   n him. I’d need ways t   c  mpensate, speaking (and writing, as I’m n  ticing n  w:( with  ut such a crutch as that letter we use all the time, even in teleph  ne numbers and sp  rts sc  res. A fruitless night in basketball, say, might be called an ‘  -f  r’, a ‘g    se egg’, an ‘  MG why d   I even try?!’ While the M  nx might n  t empathize, he fully relates, h  wling s  metimes at the m    n, as if s  mething up there can meet his needs s    n.

                  Human needs are… hmmm. Hard t   say m  re, as we’ve crafted   ur w  rld in the manner   f carnel desires—seeking fulfillment, when bellies are easy t   fill. I d   s   with belles lettres (thank G  d I still read all the ink in F  r Wh  m the Bell T  lls), h  ping t   Hemingway things my   wn s  rt   f way. But since this lacuna—this absence   f ‘  ’—I really d  n’t kn  w h  w I’ll c  pe.

                  The st  ry I’m writing, f  r instance, is set in Minnes  ta, the year 2  8  (damn—even the ways t   write ‘twenty’ and ‘eighty’ are ruined), and it’s c  mplex en  ugh with  ut having t   think ab  ut lacking a fracti  n of alphabet, which naturally limits a lexic  n. I’ve struggled t   craft the c  nditi  ns   f what I first dubbed the ‘iz  ne’: a technical cl  ud that renders Siri small and unneeded—Siri is any streamed citizen n  w, as g    d   r as bad as that n  ti  n might be. Then came the hard news: ‘iz  ne’ had already been claimed by a different writer, I’m sure in its fullness   f clarity, middle v  wel and all.

                  Last ditch attempt, I l    ked t   the Danes (as I   ften d  —Hamlet my general g  -t  ) and dialed up an answer: alas, the izøne may live, and my life has new meaning again. Just change the accent, and løøk—I can get døwn the page! Øh, sure, the Mønx is a little surprised, as well as the wife, kids and knøwn inner circle; the rest øf the gløbe has møre pressing needs (like climate cøntrøl, ør høw tø be gøød in a ‘less is møre’ møde).

                  And s  metimes that means I’ll decide when tø paste that new find,   r let the gaps be. Whø was it—Wittgenstein?—wh   said “the limits   f my language are the limits   f my wørld.” But   pen up the pøssibilities—really   pen them up—and talk them thrøugh and walk the d  g with eyes attuned, that in this jøurney we’re all a bit here for m  re than just making due [sic, but hey:].

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2019)