Dario is under the weather this week, which means he’s annoying, because he doesn’t yet know how to communicate how he feels with words. I ask with futility: Is it your tummy? Are you itchy? Do you need to poo? Do you need me to pry out the poo with my finger? He screams until I hold him tightly in my arms in a configuration that takes multiple change ups in body positions to discover. We take a slow bouncy walk around the block and this cool September 1 Breeze finally wakes us both up. We go back inside where I eventually transform into a chair when he burrows into my lap and forces me to sit down. He asks for one thing he can articulate:

Elmo Truck?

That’s what he calls TV time.

I’m happy to slow down with him this morning. I owe it to my family after sneaking out for half the day yesterday. And though I can sense a tidal wave of work waiting to crash upon me when I return to the half of my computer dedicated to industry, I continue to push back against time, to spend it with Dario. Some mornings are like that. This one has been particularly slow; slower than usual because I couldn’t sleep again. I had an outrageous sequence of thoughts punctuated by a flash rain at 3am.

I showered with my glasses on. I was all out of sorts last night after returning from an impromptu trip to Barnegat Bay where I dipped in the ocean for ten minutes and spent a couple hours listening to Ospreys with Michael, on the mildest tailwind possibly recorded in history. I called it the La Croix water of winds. I admit to Michael I’m extremely not a “water person”—I hate swimming, I get seasick—but this is a great way to “enjoy” the water all the same. We talk at length about work—spiritual, industrial. It all seems related. He knows I’ve been working through a very complicated matrix of feelings with the re-emergence of my father in my life. As a slightly unorthodox kind of father himself, he offers some perspective.

Christian made fun of me for going on a boat trip alone with Michael because it sounded so romantic, but because I know he’s so far beyond that particular kind of jealousy, I joked that I’d require a much bigger boat to be wooed by Michael.

I am still groggy and it feels a bit like delayed seasickness. Christian blames my trip to the bay, adding that he’s incredulous at the absolutely charmed life I live. I tell him if this is his way of saying he wants to be invited to boat trips to the ocean, he needs to say it. Even taxis need to be hailed. He says he doesn’t want to go on the boat trip but laughs at how I’ve obliterated my equilibrium because I insist on burning my candle at both ends.

Dario feels better now, after expressing his discomfort directly into my chest, banging his head crying for several minutes. We are all hailing for a means to transport ourselves. I have sent out my peculiar hail. It is a sequence of thoughts I can’t articulate, punctuated by flash rains at 3am, after testing my threshold for floating in water.