So there is this moment caught on tape. It is the only moment I kind of remember and it is what is keeping me from watching again, keeping me from writing anymore.

I’m interviewing my father, I can’t tell you right now what about. But I’m interviewing him and suddenly when I move to ask a question I freeze. Not just for a second. My whole brain seizes up and suddenly not only can I not remember the question, but I can’t think of a new one. I interview for a living, lose my train of thought all the time. I’m great at transitioning into something else, an expert at picking up the ball and moving with it even if I’m distracted, uninterested, elsewhere. But at this moment I lose it, and what I know is on that tape is a stretch of silence where I’m groping for words. It is that moment that I don’t remember well, but I know my mind and I know when I watch it again and see my father’s face, listen to my staggered words after that stretch of silence that I will remember how it felt and maybe even catch a glimpse of what it felt like. I don’t want to remember what was behind that moment, I want to erase it from time.

I’ve already erased part of it. That interview took two tapes. We got in country, I can’t tell you where or when now but we got there and I’ve lost one of the tapes. Searched everywhere but I’ve misplaced it for good it seems. I looked in my jewelry box the other day and wondered at the crappy earrings I’ve held onto for over 20 years, marveled at the pearl necklace my grandmother gave me when I was three. I am good at holding on.

So here I sit struggling to hold onto all this. I keep going back to something I wrote down after beginning all this: “When it gets hard, remember, this is important.” I wrote it after doing research on Vietnam. Reading about the veterans who beat their children bloody. The ones who chained there dark-haired petite wives to garden gates at night, the ones who sit in easy chairs today and read war books over and over, who still breathe the oil slick of that faraway place.

I’m rusty now, and reeling. Trying to navigate my way back to the place where I can write something that means anything. There are so many half-truths here. So many sentences I can't quite finish.