The sun is warmer, more present this morning.
You don’t have to search for it. It lands upon you naturally, covering everything like a forgotten skin, like water.
Jones and I are playing Bad Boat Drivers in the backyard. The rules and characters keep shifting. Jones is hitting zombies with a bat, and I am scooping unfriendly sharks from the ocean with a net, and then flinging them at the attacking zombies. Frenzied, it goes like this until Jones notices a tiny flower in the nearby dirt, within which he then discovers an even tinier, even more perfect flower. He is wonderstruck. O brave new world that has such things in it! And is it a greater gift for him, to have such an intricate jewel revealed, or for his mother, to whom Jones is now running, this revelation held gently in his hands?
Birds start to congregate in this suddenly quiet yard– each calling to each. A neighbour waves down from his fire escape as he lights a smoke. Workers a few houses over are building something, the scent of cut wood floating in the air. Spirited, they speak in Italian, their words calling to both the past and future. Something shifts inside, and for the first time in awhile everything feels at ease. Normal. And then Jones returns from giving his mom the flower, looks at me and says, “I’m having a good day, let’s go on the boat.”
