The Weird Kid

In the bathroom my clothes felt like a cruel rough rope harness and so I left a trail of them down the hall to the bedroom. I stood in front of our broken closet, naked, looking for something with as few seams as possible to put on.

These are black dog days. My husband taught me that term yesterday, telling me that is what Winston Churchill referred to his darkly depressed days as.

But Sean does things to try and heal up the black. Like yesterday.

He came to the door of the room where I was naked, announced himself as Gate Security, and leapt on me, demanding to know where I was hiding the drugs.

Part all-consuming hug and part tickle and large part pure lascivious manhandle.

"Where are they lady!! Huh? What are you storing in these two? Cocaine? Are the drugs up here? Or up here? Huh? So you think you're gonna fly Delta Airlines do ya?

Just as he was threatening to extend his cavity probe, our daughter hooted and Ewok-babbled her way into the bedroom, slapping tiny hands on my butt to help Dad with whatever it was he was doing.

I was laughing. Not my normal one or two-note laughs, not the long punchy "HA!!!" from an offensive joke on South Park. Those are the laughters that are left over in us because we grew up and the world got less sweet and funny, so now we laugh so show we're able to, instead of complaining. Now to be swung round and round in an airplane ride would make us worry about nausea and how bad we're gonna feel this in the morning. It's near impossible to get that good laughter back.

The laughter Sean gave me, that particular kind, from teasing and tickling, speaks to my most simple brain, and returns to me my first understanding of what joy was. He time-traveled my brain. I needed it.

A break for the black dog.