One thing about Damon is that he’s an easy caricature. In fact, he’s his own brand. I think I’m going to take this somewhere, if he doesn’t beat me to it.

The fates gave us rain, and we stayed at home pretending it was November. We went outside in the weepy drizzle and turned the sweet-smelling compost, added some red earthworms, and swung in the front yard all morning long.

We are going to the beach. I don’t care if the tide is low or high, or whether I feel like going tomorrow or not. I am washing clothes and packing our possibles, because I need to breathe cool, salty air and drive home with nappy hair and sandy toes.

Ford, when finally finished with his painting yesterday afternoon, stood back and looked at it. I stood beside him. I remarked on the different greens, how each had a different color mixed within it. I asked him about the painting, about what he was thinking about as he painted. He told me that there were images hidden inside. Could I, for example, find the hidden sickle? “You know, like Cronus’ sickle. Can you find it?”
It made me feel victorious, that he’d actually absorbed some of the stories I’ve been reading lately. And lately, we’ve been reading about the birth of the Titans, and how Zeus and his children came to be. I had gotten fed up with Pokemon and decided to take Ford’s zeal for characters and funnel that passion into mythology; this time, Greek mythology. Last year, we lurked for a while in Norse myths, but the Greek myths are hidden everywhere, like little green sickles, in the best (and in Pokemon’s case, the worst) of children’s literature and comics. They’re all a bunch of trading card characters. Like, the free kind.

We were sitting in the Santa Cruz Diner. The neighborhood began to pop fireworks and fizzers into the purple dusk. We were about to pay the bill and drive through boardwalk traffic to a fireworks show that didn’t really exist. We discovered that the best seats in Santa Cruz might have been on the beach, choking on camp smoke and trying to keep Chas out of the fire. Therefore the car, as it turned out, was the best seat. It was simply one of those fourths that we decided not to plan. In other words, it was a time for us to be lame.
The day itself was much more gratifying: an afternoon spent on a warm secluded beach about a half hour north of Santa Cruz.

There was an exhibit of Chinese paintings years ago, at the Houston MFA, that I remember. It was not the paintings that stick in my mind (although the landscapes were lovely) but rather the rectangular signature seals that the artists used to initial their work. It seemed such a designerly approach to a signature, one that appeared so…official, important, secret club-like. To some people it might look little more than a notarized stamp, an insitutionalized seal of authenticity. But for the simple reason of liking them, I decided the kids should have their own simple seals. Plus, the boys like stamps; it has a very satisfactory feel, the stamping of their artwork. I sense that this act makes their work feel more “official” once it’s done, too. It’s the little satisfactory things. And they’re so easy to carve from a piece of linoleum or rubber blocks. Just collect from your artists a pencil-written signature, with letters big enough to carve, and transfer the signature onto the stamp by rubbing the opposite side of the paper. Carve. Stamp. Voila! Repeat as necessary (and in our case, that’s quite often, indeed).

Ford is practicing basic board maneuvers. He circumnavigates the driveway in rough squares of measured effort, propelling himself faster each time. His legs are slightly bent and his form conveys assurance and ease, but his arms carry some tension. They coil upwards toward lifted shoulders, bearing fear’s weight in two invisible buckets. All the while, joy and satisfaction beams through his proud, young face.

Chas soars above the ground, speeding faster than the sound of his rolling bearnings. He clicks over twigs in the driveway, sometimes rolling over the board as it stops dead beneath him. He laughs, I laugh. His palms are black from asphalt soot and his nubby toes are fearlessly worn smooth and black, too. I can hear him acting out an action scene, his voice trails behind him as he flies across the blacktop, exaggerated cries of help and pleas for mercy, ending with a thud as he slams into the woodpile, throwing himself in a heap onto the ground. He lies spread-eagle beside his skateboard, looking up into the walnut boughs above him, swaying in the hot afternoon breeze.

After a three minute meditation, watching the leaves flutter and sway, he mounts his hovercraft and soars back across the driveway, his own little cosmos

to flail himself into the jasmine, in another utterly romantic gesture of bravado. His heart just couldn’t beat any louder.

Ford and I laugh again. We follow no particular path, only minding not to run in to each other. Sometimes we glide just so close, knock knuckles, smile again. There is no two o’clock school traffic on our street to mark our passage through the afternoon. Chas is in his own world but he sometimes shows us where he’s been. Sometimes he shows us where he’s going. And then, like us, you can catch him just gelling with the afternoon. At that moment you know he’s off any agenda and he’s just somewhere in the middle of a summer afternoon in the driveway.

There’s a riot growing outside my front door and it’s slowly moving into the adjacent studio…