Record of a Special Day
With everything finally ready, I settled the kids into bed.
The moment I laid him down, Luca flipped himself right over. I turned him back the right way, and that was when Reni, clutching the rabbit doll he only ever slept with, rolled over once and spoke up as if the thought had just struck him.
"Daddy, will you read me a book before we sleep tonight?"
"Sure. How about you go pick out the one you want to hear?"
"Okay!"
Reni scrambled down from the bed and raced off toward the playroom. While he was gone, I hurried to set up an unplanned shoot. Tonight, for real this time, I was going to film a bedtime story video.
"Please read this one tonight!"
The book Reni brought back was a children's edition of The Little Prince. If a picture had a star in it, he seemed to love it on sight.
"All right. Come on, let's lie down again first."
To keep Luca from stuffing his hands and head into the camera the way he always did, I got both boys settled under the covers and took turns gently patting them.
Only after I had put Luca back in place for the third time—after he kicked the blanket off and tried to flip over again—could I finally start reading.
"That day, the Little Prince watched the sunset for a long, long time……."
I paused mid-sentence and glanced at the two of them.
I hadn't even reached the halfway point, and both boys were already deep asleep. They must have been exhausted.
Reading alone without any little voices chiming in didn't feel right, so I quietly closed the book, turned off the light, left the door cracked open just a little, and slipped out.
Another failed bedtime-story video.
I hadn't been set on filming it tonight anyway, so the disappointment was mild. Someday I would get a proper take.
I started the last of the household chores by sliding the book back onto its shelf.
All the dishes that had piled up through the day went into the dishwasher. The clothes the kids had peeled off went into the washing machine.
I tidied the living room and kitchen, set the robot vacuum running, checked on the sleeping boys one more time, then took a shower.
I almost headed straight to bed to end the day, but decided instead to film another membership-only video the way I had last time.
It was a special day, after all, and my mind had been too unsettled the past few days to shoot anything properly. It felt right to capture something.
Besides—surprisingly—the first clip I had posted, the one that was basically a video letter, had been getting warm responses.
I thought about sitting at my work desk in the same framing as before and carving a bit of wood while I talked, but instead I carried a few sheets of paper and a pencil over to the island table.
I wanted to leave something behind to remember the day by.
After a moment's thought, I decided I might redesign the dishes I had planned for the cakes I would make with the kids in mind.
Evan and Kelly had already signed off on the designs for the recipe-book shoot, but if they said no I could always just make them for myself…….
I set up the camera and cleared my throat.
"Ahem."
Still felt awkward, even the second time.
Drawing on the experience from the first video, I started sketching first instead of launching straight into talking, letting the tension ease.
Scratch, scratch…….
There were four pieces I needed to prepare for the recipe-book shoot.
A cake stand for the whole cake, and a cake plate for the slices. A deep-footed dish for the water-drop jelly cake, and a square plate for the jalapeño sablés.
I liked the shapes well enough, so I left those alone and only changed the patterns and colors.
The original design had been a soft mix of pale gray and lavender with the children's and my own constellations drawn in gold.
Since the cakes themselves—the real highlight—would be gold and gray, I had thought a moderately dark base would set the desserts off best.
But maybe a little more color wouldn't hurt.
If I could pour tonight's sky—the one I had watched with the kids—into a round plate, that would be perfect.
Scratch, scratch…….
The sound of pencil on paper. The distant hum of the city, same as always.
"……."
After a brief pause, I boiled water in the kettle and made another cup of the peach-blossom tea I had drunk earlier, setting it carefully inside the camera frame.
The blossom tea belonged in today's story.
I watched the petals unfurl prettily in the hot water, took a sip, and finally offered a greeting.
"Hello."
I let out a small breath and continued in a steady voice.
"Today is a day I personally wanted to record my feelings, so I turned the camera on. Um……."
There was no need to mention that I had officially become the children's godfather today. That was information for me alone.
After a short hesitation about how to begin, I decided simply to walk back through the rest of the day and say whatever I had felt.
"I had to go downtown first thing this morning. It was important, and it went well. But I was so busy I skipped breakfast."
Even as I said it, I doubted the subscribers would care about that level of detail, but I trusted Cassandra's editing and kept going with the rambling video letter.
"So on the way home I stopped at a café for a late breakfast, and the staff recommended a freshly baked baguette with whipped cream. It was delicious."
Luca's face—the one that said Why isn't Daddy giving me any?—flashed through my mind and pulled a smile out of me.
"But my second one stared at me with this completely wronged expression. You know that look babies get—the 'why are you eating alone and not giving me any' face? It was so cute I couldn't stand it. In the end I scooped out the soft inside of the baguette, spread cream on it, and fed it to him."
I barely got a few bites myself, yet somehow I felt just as full. Strange, how watching them eat could fill you up.
"By the time we got home it was already past lunch, so we ate right away. I just stir-fried some meat and vegetables we had in the fridge with rice and a bit of sauce. Next time I'll post the fried-rice video too. The lightly seasoned meat and veggies with fluffy rice—it's really good."
I had mixed the mild sauce myself with the kids in mind, so something like "Fried Rice for Little Ones" would probably work as a title.
"……Oh, and this is something I only just realized about myself: I guess I'm a bit of a picky eater. I don't particularly like vegetables, but these days I eat them properly because the kids are watching. Once they're in my mouth they're fine, but that first bite is always the hurdle."
Even that felt like too much information once I said it…….
"And in the evening I just had a cup of tea. I felt like I'd overeaten a little since morning."
I set the pencil down and brought the glass still full of blossom tea into the exact center of the frame.
"But there's something I learned from my child today. If you drink tea under a sunset, it feels like you're drinking the sun as it goes down. He said, 'Daddy's drinking flower scent and sunset right now'……."
The memory of those pure, clear eyes and the pretty way he put it made me smile again.
"……I think my firstborn might actually be a genius. Don't you?"
I hesitated, but in the end I said it. How much self-control does a person need to keep from bragging about their kids?
I gave another sheepish laugh, gathered the feelings I had felt earlier, sorted them out, and went on.
"Taking that one sip of tea made my chest warm beyond words. Like I had poured the whole long, chaotic day into the cup and swallowed it all at once."
All the tangled emotions that had been floating around and making me dizzy—I had put them into that single cup of tea and gulped them down.
"You know how sometimes you get confused about how the day went, what you did, how you got through it, whether the place you're standing is yesterday or today……? That was a little how I felt while drinking the tea. And then I just swallowed the whole of it."
With that, I took another sip and picked up the pencil again to continue the sketch.
"Once I'd swallowed every emotion, my heart felt a bit more settled. It was okay."
Scratch, scratch…….
Even in black and white I tried to capture the dense shadows of the clouds, the brilliant light pushing between them, and the warm colors dissolving across the sky.
"From now on I think I'll sit by the window with a cup of tea now and then and put the day away like that. Only when I swallow the thoughts and feelings that have melted like sunset in my chest can a peaceful night finally come."
On days when the heart and mind tangled and burned—pour them into a cup of tea and swallow them whole. Don't try to unravel them further. Don't try to put them back either.
"A new day will catch fire again once this night is over anyway……. So resting well first really seems important. We worked hard through the day, so at least at night we can rest without thinking about anything, right?"
Tomorrow would come looking for me whether I called it or not, and we would have to endure that heat all over again.
"At night you have to cool the heart down thoroughly."
Only then would you be able to swallow the next day whole the following evening.
"And someday, when a night that feels truly long and cold arrives, I think all those days I swallowed will hold me up."
Because I had gulped them down. Because I had surely taken those many days into myself.
"Even the light that scattered and broke will still be flowing inside me. Then no matter what anyone says, one point of light shining in the dark will be mine."
One star glowing in the dark night.
Scratch…….
I set the pencil down.
The design, looking as if sunset and night and dawn had all come together, pleased me quite a bit. So did the little stars scattered here and there between them.
"I drew this design to record the thoughts that passed through me today. Is it all right?"
I lifted the paper close to the camera. Then, adding a little more shading along the tiny stars floating in the round plate-sky, I continued.
"And this just came to me. Stars are so very far apart, yet they still shine under the same sky……. So what I mean is, I believe we're connected somehow, no matter what."
I wished I had been able to think this way back when I felt completely alone in the world. Even though it was a little embarrassing, I decided to say it.
If anyone out there was feeling lonely, I hoped these words would reach them.
"We're all people who have lived under the same sky through countless days. Even if you and I never meet, even if I feel completely alone today, maybe just looking up at the sky once will be enough."
The stars in the night sky never rise alone.
The next day.
The week had flown by in a blur, and already it was time to take Reni to the church.
"Good heavens, Jun. What happened to your face? You said everything went fine yesterday."
Cassandra, who had come to pick our family up as usual, stared at my haggard face in alarm.
"I'm fine. Just a little tired."
Maybe the tension that had gripped me all week had finally let go; even after a full night's sleep my body felt heavy and sluggish. The kids, of course, were bouncing with energy.
As the car pulled out and I forced my eyes wide open so I wouldn't doze off, Cassandra brought up last night's video.
"I checked the video you sent last night first thing this morning. It was warm and lovely again. Turns out you're quite the emotional young man, Jun."
I shook my head hard. Looking back in the cold light of morning, I couldn't believe I had left something like that out in the world. I should have reviewed it once more before hitting send.
"Blame my literary little firstborn and the dawn-hour feelings. Please edit out anything that got too sentimental."
"Hmm. I think I'll just leave it as is."
"Please don't. Oh, and there's something I wanted to ask."
Cassandra grinned mischievously.
"Sure, sure. Ask me anything."
I took a sip of the strong coffee I had brought and asked,
"When's the cheapest time to buy a car?"