When I was a wee lad, sometime around the 77th year of the last century, my dad got a job at the grain elevator in Palermo. Palermo, North Dakota, not Palermo, Sicily. Although, for a 5-year-old who has nothing to do but stare out the window of a Butterfinger colored Ford Econoline and bicker with a little brother, the 50 mile move from Lignite to Palermo, North Dakota seemed roughly the equivalent of the 5,000 miles to Sicily.

I began my stellar academic career in Palermo with two years of kindergarten. At the conclusion of the first year, my teacher, Mrs. Feldman, claimed I wasn’t mature enough for first grade. A claim that still holds true. What did I learn in two years of kindergarten? I learned that cowboy boots are not a sensible choice of footwear for playing baseball and evading girls on the playground.

Some time after my second year of kindergarten, possibly out of fear that a third year was in the cards, we loaded up that Butterfinger colored Ford Econoline with all our worldly belongings and made the arduous journey back to Lignite. Lignite, North Dakota, not Lignite, Alaska.

I remember sitting in the passenger seat of the van in our driveway in Palermo after saying goodbye to my friends, friends from my first year of kindergarten…mature friends… waiting for mom to finish saying her goodbye’s. If you’ve ever been in the position of waiting for my mom to finish saying her goodbye’s, you understand the extended length of time required to hold that position.

During that extended length of time I was glancing about the van, filled to capacity with our belongings, and I felt sad. Our television was sitting in the space between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat, and it had a handle on top, the type of handle with silver metal hinges on each end that allowed it to lay flat when someone wasn’t attempting to lift it, and I was flipping that handle back and forth…clank…clank…clank…

We were a few miles out of town, a few miles of clank…clank…clank…and my mom looked at me and said, “It’s okay to be sad. We can come back and visit sometime.” Clank…clank…clank…my mom has always possessed an impressive tolerance for unnecessary noises. Especially for unnecessary noises produced by kids that aren’t mature enough for first grade.

My siblings and I did not inherit this impressive tolerance for unnecessary noises, we inherited our fathers swift and immediate, “Do you mind?” To which any immature punk worth their salt will reply, “No. No I don’t.”

“We can come back and visit sometime.” Way turns to way, days turn to years, and sometimes, sometime doesn’t visit. So it goes.

Michel de Montaigne, a French philosopher in the 1500s, is credited with inventing the essay as a form of writing. The word essay comes from the French word “essayer” which means “to attempt.” We often write to attempt to make sense of things, to express things, to remember things, and with that attempt we invite others to help us make sense of things, to help us express things, to help us remember things.

To attempt. Sometimes that’s all we can do.