Jones is four now, and the clouds are high in the sky. White against blue, they are great island chains in an unknown ocean. They move quickly, shifting, rolling past the fading moon.

Walking up the sidewalk, a lollipop in his mouth, Jones is telling me that bees are not allowed to live at daycare. He interrupts himself to wave and say hi to a bird.

His tiny, perfect voice.

“Hi, bird, hi!”

And then it is on to ants. He squats down each time he sees one, gets as close to eye level as possible. He is on his hands and knees now, waving at the ant, “Hello, are you a friendly ant?!” It doesn’t really matter if it’s a friendly ant or not, Jones will try to pick him up. “Look daddy, this one misses his mommy and died on a bush.” Such careful attention stretches our walk, stretches time into something else, and we will not be getting to daycare until a little later this morning.

Jones, some form of god, destroyer and preserver of ants, friend to birds, reaching out to everything that lives. Sometimes bringing thunder, sometimes bringing light. How does it all work? How does one know they are doing good in this world? A teen rides her bike slowly down the sidewalk, and just before she passes us, unseen sparrows, startled, rise up from tall grass–every one thing touching every other thing.

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Notice what you feel:

I am walking back from daycare and I have my eyes closed. It is the morning, still fresh, and I am noticing the fine, barely perceptible sparks of rain that fall on my face. It feels like something mysterious and alive, something benevolent. I am noticing my breathing, how I labour with it and have to consciously inhale through the prongs in my nose. I feel the oxygen tank on my back, how it pulls against my body, my muscles tightening, growing tense. I open my eyes, now concerned that I may be veering blindly toward someone on the sidewalk, and I see my street, a ribbon separating the red, brick homes on either side, and the impossible leaves all around them, jewels spilling from a treasure chest, wet and almost shining.

Notice movement:

I am in motion. All of me, everything contained within and without, and all the world around swirling like mists. Everything in constant motion, even the rocks, everything in the process of degrading and reforming, everything sightlessly churning. I push Jones down the street in his stroller and an airplane passes loudly overhead, contrails streaming behind. Jones yells and points, his pupils expanding in the wonder of recognition. A cat slinks out of a bush and looks at us, considers things, and then begins a cautious journey across the street, each step the brushstroke of a great artist. We pass by a woman walking two dogs who pause to rummage through the rubble of some broken jack-o-lanterns on a lawn. They look up at us like the shadows we are, and then we arrive at daycare and a bird, unseen, chirps smally from a tree before emerging and rising beyond us in flight.