on your second birthday

notes from the edge

Dear Z.,

There is a postcard on my bedside table that I glance at every morning.

In simple handwriting, it says: Go To Your Edge.

I am encouraged by this card—and its artist maker, your Oma—to love you more fiercely, to offer you more and more of myself when we are together, and to loosen my grip on what I think should happen when you run toward a puddle…