BY ROGER PAO
If you learn the loneliness of gardensbefore the age of ten, you cango back to a memory of your fatherholding his newspaper open.
He is indoors, and you are behind him,but you feel close – you are closeto him. With only a clear window panebetween the two of you,
you try to read the stories off your father’s paper, but the fine size of the print keeps you from details. The headlines pronounce
news in a tone too clipped and calm for your heart. You can sense the manmade storms that his blackenedfingertips turn away from you,
while the sun blooms intensely outside. You want to ask your father to join you outside, but the part of you that always loves him
fears that he will not enter the gardenbehind him, even as you stare inwards. You are lonely in the light,if you live without your father.
by roger pao