What your mother says in the doorway

Wear a coat. Don't stay up. Do you have enough money.

You've heard that sequence for twenty years. You make a noise that means yes and hang up in eight seconds.

Poets in the Zhou dynasty wrote a song for people who couldn't do that anymore. It's about the parent you can no longer call.

Liao liao zhe e, fei e yi hao. They're talking about a plant called e, which you're supposed to be able to distinguish from hao, a weed that looks the same. The poet says he can't tell them apart, and the reason is grief. A person who has lost both parents can't do the simple thing of knowing what's growing in front of them.

Ai ai fu mu, sheng wo qu lao. Oh, my parents, who gave me life and bore the labour of it.

The last line is the one that lands. You want to repay the debt of their care, and the sky is boundless. There's no edge to it, no final page where the account clears.

This poem was sung at funerals and in courts for centuries, and there are records of people weeping when it was performed. Not because it was clever. Because it's too late by the time you understand it.

You don't have to say anything of substance on the call. One minute is enough, and it's worth more now than the speech you'll write later.

MOJOWAY is about noticing what's still here before it becomes a memory you describe to a camera. Self-awareness usually arrives earlier than you think, and costs less.