Neptune’s Yellow Sands

Setting the alarm to not miss the clock’s turning, a boy in each bed and too tired for the Guinness.  Here’s to 2024 being an epic one.  Big days ahead so rest it without rhyme and reason.  Fare the well, 2023, no complaints.  Except maybe the result in Manchester in April. It was the year of Sable, the year of Cancun, the year of Sona, the year of Liscomb and White Point, the year of daycare, the year of the CX-90, and of course the year of JB.  Memorable all around and more to come at that.   Remember not to interrupt.  Don't joke about praise or anything else that might trigger insecurity.  Emotional support.  Active listening.  Don't doubt.  Trust.  Don't second guess.  Just go with the ideas. Let's see what happens next.

 A good one.  Fresh air, not overly odorned or otherwise enveloped. The magic is in being in the same space, the same books, the same stockings.  The old photos. I'll do my best, says Dad as I leave tonight, watching the second half of a World Trade Center special to humor him, after he comes up with the Irving story to make Christmas the funnier. I’ll do my best.  A second later, Mom is up since my dead phone didn’t get the call about another pain killer. The exasperation.   Then AA cries something out that might be considered the same thing, and is comforted in a not dissimilar way.  And there’s the diaper changes and the moving in and out of clothing and the like.   The joy he gets in you just watching what he’s taped - which is good!  I hope the 19 month old baby shark in the next bed over one day understands before too late.

And now 5 minutes into the 25th.  Traditions come and go.  Some remain, lobster sandwiches and Chinese food, United church service and last minute shopping.  First without Mr. Reeves, and no other siblings arriving imminently. But first with 2 Jack stockings, and a clapping AA, running around in the basement where you raced cub cars and cared deeply about certain things now lost to time.  The memory fades. We washed the car, increased the tire pressure, drove around with coffee until AA slept, said baby shark over again, heard then saw Donato at the liquor store as he picked up limoncello. Watched the Inch bros latest. Read the old James M version of Clement to M and J., where the breast milk rained last night.  Helped AA settle in the broken bed that kept dreams alive during Covid. Time to sleep again.