this book

This is a physical thing that I will hold in my hand, put on the shelf, wrap in coloured paper for other people's pleasure. This is a book with pages that smell of new carpet and silence and a jacket that will be matt and cool under my fingers. This will be a solid unchanging fact. I have a book coming out. I have this truth that sits on your shelf and you can read it.

I print out your book. I hold it. I feel the weight of it. I sit your book beside mine on the table. Two thick stacks of paper. Silent as eggs. And this is what women feel when they long for a child I suppose, this tenderness. My hands rest on twin piles of white paper. I feel the words under my fingertips for a moment. I am blind to the imperfections, the disappointments, the inevitable growing out into the world. I am proud of you for finishing this and therefore it follows that I must be proud of myself as well. To have achieved this hard thing that we do with no imminent reward and no punishment. All this long lonely work. A pile of paper that you and I can both be quietly proud of.