Me in the front, he in the back.
Jones has figured out how to operate the power windows and this gives him no end of amusement. Cool, grey wind blows in through the open window, and people walk swiftly past, hands in pockets. Everybody in a big city kind of trance. Locked into a zone where anything other than the self is an obstacle to be avoided.
It’s easy to hate this on a day that promises winter. To be exhausted by it. To just want to move away from the city and live amidst trees.
But Jones doesn’t mind all the averted eyes, at all. When he sees somebody coming down the sidewalk he powers down his window and shouts out to them, “Hi! Hi! Hello there!!” Each person is startled at first. They glance over at the car and see me, a middle-aged man on oxygen, and start to look away– all feeling a little bit more uncomfortable now than just a second ago. And then they see Jones. His sunny, smiling face. His little hand waving out the window, his happy optimism, and their faces relax. They start to smile, then laugh. He must do this to a half dozen people, maybe a dozen. The same result each time. Each time, a little spark ignited within.
Each person now carrying this into their journey.
The strangers continue down the street, like illuminated ghosts now, or a line of lanterns growing dim in the distance. Each one of us slightly different, as if wind-blown, as if the spirit of something small and beautiful had just passed through us.
Beneath his bright, yellow backpack he wobbles up the street.
So small beneath his outsized potential.
He scans the horizon for the ice cream truck but it is not there. Like the brave warrior he is, he brushes this disappointment aside. He will show me his tree, his favourite tree.
It’s the third one.
He runs to the tree like a long lost relative, throws his arms around it. Can you remember the last time you did that? That something in this world struck you with such urgency you had to run to it? Not out of obligation, but passion. You burned for it. Not a second could be wasted. You just dropped everything and ran toward this light the future cast back to you.
I ask Jones what the tree’s name is.
“Paper.”
Sometimes his is such a small, unpredictable voice.
We talk to Paper for a little bit, and then Jones kisses him goodbye and we continue home. There is a giant stick. Things in a box. A white dog with crazy eyes. A university student speeding powerfully by on her skateboard. A truck that looked like the ice cream truck but was not. Another dog. A squirrel who made eye contact and then disappeared into a trash can.
These children, they give so much of themselves. Everything they have. Nothing held back.
And Jones is tired. He sits on the sidewalk, turns his attention to the ants. So many tiny ants. He marvels as they vanish underground and then reappear, each one the same, each one different, each one on a mysterious and dangerous journey upon which much depends.
“ I was in a house in a valley. It was raining heavily. I went out to the terrace and could see a dark black tornado formation in the sky. I could also hear children’s voices, but I could not see them. The voices sounded distant, as if coming from across water or through fog. I was worried, and started to frantically search for them, but they were nowhere to be found. I was exhausted and could feel the wind spinning around me. I thought I would surely perish, but as I looked up to the sky I saw a beautiful angel floating before me. His eyes were jewels. I stretched out my hand and just as I was about to touch him, I woke up.
I have carried this with me for almost 30 years.
This dream, more real than anything else I have experienced in my life.”
We are standing in front of our apartment on a hot and humid morning, and it is the first time in over a week I have been well enough to take him to daycare. We welcome this return, although we do not speak it. It lives in our eyes, in the way we look at one another. Everything once again in the right place. A bird chirps brightly from above and I ask Jones what it said.
“First he said hello to me then he said hello to you.”
We wave back, and as we walk up the street Jones tells me his dream from the night.
“I was a baby and I lived in Mommy’s hair.”
It is a beautiful image, and I feel like a light has just entered into my body. Jones happy and striking poses on the sidewalk, and then a crack of thunder above and around us, big drops of rain falling slow then fast. We hurry for shelter, finding some on the porch of a large, old house. The house with the raspberry bush. The house where the owners used to invite us in and give us things from their garden, before they moved away and the property became so mysteriously and beautifully overgrown.
Sheltered, we feel like we’re in a turret or a cave. All is brick and stone and dark cement. The rain is harder now and it’s exciting, cathartic. Everybody on the street soaking wet, everybody feeling vulnerable, yet freer than they’ve felt in a long time–all relieved to have the order and artifice of their day washed from them. And Jones begins to sing and dance. A scene from Singing in the Rain. His smile is big and silly and true, and the rain pours off the sloped roof above us like a waterfall– the fortune, the miracle to be alive within this baptismal moment.
The Flash is seated outside on a small chair beneath the shade of a tree. All around him toddlers sit crosslegged while the supervisor directs their questions to The Flash.
Q: Is it true you eat a dozen raw eggs for breakfast?
F: No, The Flash likes red candies and ice cream. I have a belt, too. It is supposed to go here, but I forgot it today. It’s made of lightning.
Q: What is The Flash’s favourite fish?
F: The Flash likes red fish and green fish and then he mixes them with rice and they are all fish.
(The Flash then runs around the tree while the children shout.)
Q: Why is your costume red?
F: It is made of lava and if you touch it you get electrocuted! (The Flash demonstrates being electrocuted)
Q: Who is the worst villain?
F: Lizard man. He hisses so you have to throw him in the lake and then he sinks and the sharks eat him and we all go swimming because now the sharks are friendly. They were just hungry.
Q: What did you dream about last night?
F: Spiders. They were crawling on the boat and then they turned into flowers and raspberries and I was happy.
Everything is heavy and still, but on occasion a gust of wind brings the scent of water. From the lake, from the sky, from places unimaginable. This water that will soon rain down upon the entire steaming city. This water from which we are nourished, from which we are comprised, from which we were born. How old is it? Is it forever?
Jones hands me a stick.
“Here daddy, this is your stick and this is mine. We will drag them through the rocks!”
We drag the sticks along the sidewalk. Jones is a shark, I am a laser beam. Earlier he was an astronaut robot dancing to Toots and the Maytals. He is a shape shifter. A shaman. A spirit guide constantly forming and reforming, announcing himself to the world in all his various guises.
A young Asian woman attired in perfectly executed variations of pink passes by. Focused on the phone before her, she does not see us. A ghost floating through the humid day. As real as a cloud. Jones drops his stick and runs into some bushes. He is drawn to every green thing. All the branches, all the leaves, all the flowers, all the replicating versions living within–everything different, everything the same. And he rummages for a minute before emerging with three tiny snail shells cupped in his hands. His eyes so blue, so big.
He knows this is a miracle.
“This one is the daddy, this one is mommy and this one is Jonesy.
Something happens to the weather and it begins to spit and we are beneath a tree, the sound of water drops falling on the leaves above.
The day is fuel.
It could reveal anything
Everything is possible.
Outside there is wet, heavy air. Raindrops tremble like mysterious candies on the leaves all around us. Jones is in his Spiderman costume.
We head up the street toward daycare and the beeping of a truck backing up awakens Jones’s spider-sense. He tells me it is the sound of somebody being electrocuted and that he needs to protect them, and so he runs off through all that is damp and green, to a fire hydrant where furious motions take place and an electrocution is narrowly averted.
And then Spiderman and I arrive at the back playground of the daycare, and the children flock to the superhero. They surround him. They’re cheering, jumping up and down– their perfect faces now seeming even a little more perfect. The daycare worker asks Jones to take his mask off and so he does.
I’m Peter Parker now!
And then he begins to run around the yard, again and again. So alive, so happy in this opportunity to be of this world. And each time he passes he gives me a high-five, and all the other children, now a part of this running, spinning, ring of joy, too, are also giving me high-fives. And if this is not a blessing, I cannot imagine what one might be.
Everything so very light and beautiful, as if the morning itself were lifting free of the earth and floating into dream.
He looks at me from beneath the big, bulging sweater he’s wearing.
Frowning.
His brow furrowed.
“I’m an evil gorilla.”
Rachelle is in the backyard. The wind blows lightly through the trees and maple keys fall in the sun. They’re spinning the light, and everything is golden green. Rachelle sweeps them into a pile which the evil gorilla hits with a plastic bat. And above us there is birdsong. Such a rich variety this morning, each song telling an important and unimaginable story. The squirrels hustle along the hydro wires like they’re on a game show or late for work, and we sip tea as our son eats from a plate of nuts, berries and cheese.
Today, my first out of the hospital, and this is the dream into which I wake.
Our lives, all so small, all so beautiful.
It was your typical Annex event, and due to the inclement weather all of the attractions had been pushed inside the school. In the gym there were about five bouncy castles, and scattered throughout the rest of the buildings were face-painting stations, games, food and a book sale. It’s always so sweet being in a miniature place like that– children’s happy paintings stuck on the walls, little science experiments trying to grow on the window sill, tiny water fountains– all these things triggering simple, happy memories in those who pass by.
However, it was not all joy. As I was sorting through the books for sale I came across one of mine. A Van Full of Girls. I was astonished to find it because so few were sold, and almost all to friends, family and acquaintances. With mixed feelings I flipped through it, saw that I had actually signed if for Gemma, a dear friend, and decorated it with stickers, drawings and celebratory thoughts. As I was looking at this and thinking about what an asshole Gemma actually was, an icy voice spoke down to me.
“Oh, to come across your own book at a used book fair! How sad!”
It was, of course, Canadian literary legend Margaret Atwood, who lives in the same neighbourhood as we do and with whom I “enjoy” a “relationship.”
Me: Oh, it’s you. Kind of surprised you survived that winter.
Margaret: As Chekov said, “ ???? ?? ????????, ????????? ?? ??? ????? ??? ?????.”
Me: Never took you for a Star Trek fan. Thought you were way too pretentious for that.
Margaret: Of course you did, my poor thing.
Me: And do you have to wear a cape? Is it enshrined in the constitution or something, or are you just trying to distract people from your hair?
Margaret: Oh, look. I found another copy of your book.
Me: NO WAY!!
Margaret: It looks like Colin– to whom you had written a very wordy, messy and somewhat incoherent message on the title page– is no longer interested in having your book in his house.
Me: Colin is a dick.
Margaret: Of course he is, of course he is. And who do we have here?
Me: Jones, come here, stay away from the scary lady! She’s Vampiro!!
Jones: Do you know Bigfoot?
Margaret: I make hotdog and kale soup for him all the time! Oh, he’s a great chap!
Jones: I want hotdog soup with Bigfoot!!
Margaret: Well, one day I’ll have you and Bigfoot over and we will have some soup, okay?
Me: Jones, come here! Jones! Don’t be tricked by her! She’s a liar! She devours little boys!
Rachelle: Miss Atwood, I just want to say that it’s a real honour to meet you, and that we are all very, very grateful for the beautiful gifts you have given to the world.
Margaret: And so you are the long-suffering Rachelle? Oh my, how lovely you are! Such a refreshing contrast!
Me: I’m right here, you know.
Margaret: Yes, yes I do know.
Take a deep breath.
Try to do a little better.
Jones is happy. He stands on the sidewalk in his mountie hat smiling and waving a little blue lightsaber. He is fascinated with the dandelions. Some are yellow flowers, others are the heads of men, all covered with bushy, white hair. “Like Santa,” Jones points out. But the rain falls on the just and unjust alike, and the lightsaber scatters their seeds across the lawns of Toronto just as God had planned.
Sidling up against fences, marvelling at cracks in the sidewalk and dogs in the distance, Jones is in no hurry. Let time adapt to him, not the other way around. And on this journey he sees some purple flowers that have just blossomed. He notices this. How yesterday they were sleeping in green nests, and today they are awake. He runs over and hugs the new flowers. Inhales so deeply it seems the flower must live within him now, too. And he smiles. “This makes me happy,” he says simply. He then breaks into song, “Flower Song, Oh, Flower Song, I Want To Sing The Flower Song.” And he sings the rest of the way to daycare, and when we get there he is still singing. His classmates run to greet us, swarm Jones, who still singing, vanishes into the happy pack.
No longer visible, just his singing now.
The rain falling so very lightly, the world freshly green.