I Swear

This is not me taking an oath of office, nor expressing exasperation, as in “I swear, that boy hasn’t the sense God gave a goose!” No, it is a statement: I swear. A lot. And, until now, it never occurred to me to wonder why.

My first realization that I possessed this talent came when I was quite young—eight or nine, or perhaps as young as seven. I know this because by the time I was ten or eleven I felt very grown up, and in this memory, I was still a child. We were playing with the neighbour...