After a heated argument with my twelve-year-old son, he comes home with a somewhat tacky mug he found in a giveaway box. It has a red heart painted on a blue background. He just puts it on the table, without a comment, and disappears into his room. I walk behind him, slowly, because I’m sad, unsure, and still a little stunned. He lies on his bed, and I simply offer him my hand, without words. Our moment of our reconciliation is brief. It happens silently. It doesn’t last long, either. We often argue because we speak very different languages. Sometimes, I think that we only really meet in the reconciliations, at least the part of us that we can build on meets. The rest is friction, trying to understand each other, or giving in—mostly on my part, it seems to me. But to feel that our “we” has a future is like being able to see light again. I don’t know what comes after that yet, but it feels warm. And when it gets unbearably cold, sometimes tea from the blue-red cup helps.
Image Jasminka Bogdanovic, Fraktal 0825, 2022, crayon / pencil on paper, 17,5 × 23,5 cm
