Welcome to Nablegazing. I'm John Dickerson. We start this second episode of

season one as we have every episode in this podcast's long history with a written notebook entry.

Notebook 75, page 6, September 2021. They chose you. This entry greeted me when I opened my Field Notes

notebook on the living room Sunday that was the topic of the first episode of

this podcast. I didn't notice this entry on that Sunday because I was busy trying to write down what Anne had

said literally about the dog and our son and hoping that in so doing something

would occur to me in the writing. I'd excavate meaning.

Another thought would present and I could put a glass around the cocktail of feelings we were having.

Or failing that, I hoped I would capture the words accurately for later consideration.

So what does this entry mean though? They chose you. Well I'm not quoting anyone as I was in our first entry. These words were the epicenter of a

pep talk. I wanted to give my oldest child before leaving him at college. To the chill of his

cinderblock cell and the contusions of new acquaintance.

I can't remember where I was when I wrote the entry but as I read it now several years

later memory smudges time and place get linked in ways I know are totally wrong.

I associate the entry, probably written in haste in the middle of a bouncing taxi cab,

with a fixed location that is not the taxi cab.

I associate the words, the message, the feeling

with the restaurant where we had our last meal

with our son before we left him to his adventure.

That wasn't where I wrote it.

Rather, it was the moment I intended to deploy it.

This is how memory works, I suppose.

...