One Day Always

3:15AM.  I know, you probably think I’m a lunatic for not going back to sleep, but I keep thinking to myself, “I’m awake, why not?” And, “This kind of quiet doesn’t find me often, anymore.” Yesterday, the whole day with Jackie, keeping him home so he could have a special day, all to him.  Just the little beat, his Mommy and Daddy.  He couldn’t believe it.  I couldn’t believe it, frankly.  A day where all of us can just hang out together, not worry about time or any appointments… just pretend like all we had to do was have fun.
Seeing him play at the museum–that children’s museum on West Steele, here in Santa Rosa–reminded me that I need to play more, just focus on trying stuff and seeing what happens.  His unintended sagacity stayed with me long after we left.  When we were at lunch, me trying to calm him at the table while he continued to act with an almost arrogance with the entire day catered to him, he for that whole day above having to go to school with all the simple people.  I told myself, “Try something, anything.” It’s really funny, honestly, when you think to yourself how you want to be more like your kids, how much they teach you about your functionality, and how if it weren’t for them you’d be a human you wouldn’t even recognize.  I still think about, now, at this crazy hour– me typing my article on my phone (which I hate doing but I’m not about to wake Jackie or Emma and have this rarest of rare leaves cut)– at this torturing and demanding hour, thinking about myself and how Time just doesn’t care how old I get, how fast my age just squeezes the youth from every millimeter of my actuality.  At one point he just stopped atop this huge tire hey have set on the ground next to another such tire, for a mammoth tractor or some big-wheeler, something, in the back area outside.  He just smiled at me, at his mommy, as if to say “Thank you”, or maybe something all 4, nearly-5, year-old’s think and maybe just blurt out.  But I saw him and I saw me, I saw our family and it was accentuated with a harsh generosity– I’m a dad.  I’m Dad.  I’m his daddy, and I need to be seen as I see him… Joyous, always moving, exploring, enjoying.  Creating.

Now would be the time where I should, really, get back to sleep.  Early day tomorrow, of course, and it’s set to rain so I should leave early. But, those thoughts are still there, Jackie ordering me to follow him to all enclaves in that museum, try playing with that light board with the long plastic cylinders making shapes and designs or just putting them in those little slots for the sake of doing just that.  And the day was just that, instrumental, education I didn’t expect from my little or not-so-little-anymore boy.

I just need some sleep, I think.