Abstract
This text is a memoir "about" parenting, responsibility, relationships.
This memoir spans the North American continent, the Atlantic Ocean, and more than three decades in search of meaning -in and for the narrator's relationship with his eldest child. A span of roughly two decades marks the chasm of absence between them. Contributing to this narrative pursuit of understanding are the tangential stories of the narrator's other family members (including two younger children from a subsequent marriage), friends, and lovers. The issue of love is present but not central because love is too amorphous a concept to be contained within any center.
The narrative arc of this text is anchored to a diachronic axis, as much as possible, for the sake of clarity. That axis measures the perpetual motion, the "never looking back," of both of the primary characters. However, the synchronic axis of their relationship measures the ebb and flow of their tentative attempts at connection.