Along comes Ava

Anna wasn't three for two weeks when we had to call my sister to come spend the night with her. We had to take Robin to the hospital because Ava decided there was too much to do in the world to stay in mom's belly. Plus she probably wanted to meet her buddy Claire who was born two days before.

That's how little sisters roll. They make your parents drop you off in the middle of the night and when they come back everything has changed. I know. I've got a little sister.

So Anna and I have the bond of being the older sibling. And truth be told, she carries probably more of my quirks and idiosyncrasies than her sister does. But Ava and I have a bond that goes easily as deep. Not to compare her to Zuckerman's famous pig, but she is radiant.

When two parents "get together" and have a child two times and two girls come into the world, you might be tempted to think they'd be a lot alike. Nope. They are two completely separate individuals when it comes to personality. And that's the cool part.

Ava and Anna play different sports, they are different students in school, they are pulled to different toys, they bust different jokes, they notice different things. One of my favorite parts about dadhood is watching the two girls grow into two different people.

Which isn't to say they aren't similar, connected in pretty big ways. But each one holds my heart for their own reasons, in their own fashion.

On Feb. 12, 2005, Ava joined the Valliant family. Today she turns seven. That's seven years of piggy-backs down the stairs; seven years of sparkling blue eyes; seven years of bubble-blowing; seven years of Ava.

Can't not

It's the sparsity that speaks. A man sits alone in his shirtsleeves, a desk and typewriter in front of him in a simple wooden shack or shanty on the water. It's the kind of view that will cause the mind to wander, coupled with a lack of distraction. There is no fluff. There are only thoughts leading to words. Not just any words: the right words.

He sits there and tries to work it out. Tries to say what he has to say because he has to. He can't not.  It's primal and inherent in him. He might be the tide, the breeze or the sun. He is just carrying out his purpose.

I've always dug that photo. I first saw it as the cover to E.B. White's "One Man's Meat." It's the archetypal writer, in any age, all you need to do is change his tools to suit the era.

Maybe it's the influence of reading Palahniuk, but I sometimes picture this scene with there also being a gun on the desk. For specificity, we'll call it a 9mm--a shotgun would throw off the balance of the desk.

The writer then has two options for how to express himself. There are times, if the words aren't coming, if genuine communication seems compromised, that shooting a hole in the wall of the shanty probably says as much as any words could. Yeah, it's probably best if writers don't keep handguns on their desks.

But for me, this morning, it's the primacy of words, the right words. When distractions abound and I'm not sure what, if anything, I have to say. When words are strewn like litter, used and tread on and I'm picking them up and turning them over, I dig calling up this picture. The writer, stripped down. The words. The attempt. The purpose.

The can't not.