At year’s end it is customary to cast an eye back towards the past 12 months and try to discern some meaning or story that can stand for the messy, complicated whole. As a citizen of this planet, this is a daunting task. In a global sense, this hasn’t been a year to remember, beset by horror and war, moral outrage and political cowardice. I’m lucky that I can limit myself here to the personal sphere and force myself to think in terms of my family; milestones reached and peaks summited. It is, to put it mildly, the only positive spin on 2023 I could imagine.
My son has soared in the realm of reading and maths, evincing a savant-like ability for adding and subtracting that is only occasionally wearisome, and an aptitude for language that has only recently devolved into regrettable profanity. For the record, and with thanks to the many, many people who stepped forward to offer their own tales of swearing children, I have decided to take this as an indictment of my own potty mouth; a theory best proven by the swear jar we’ve introduced, which has thus far counted only myself among its donors.
