Daydreams

I have started fantasizing about you. Who you might be, and what you might do.

I have looked up summer camp in Marblehead. Short day camps start at 4. Childrens' Island starts at 7, where you head off on a boat with a packed lunch and run wild on an island with a swimming pool and an arts and crafts shed.

Intro youth sailing starts at the Pleon at 8. Last night your father dreamt about us sailing with you as a little boy, so by the time you go to Pleon you'll have already gone out afternoons with us on the Ensign. I am imagining buying you your own Opti when you are seven, wading out into Little Harbor and watching you muck about in it when the tide is low and going, so there's no chance of you getting in over your head.

I became very focused on thinking about names with your father this weekend, and made a large spreadsheet, and bounced several names off of him. Some he liked and I didn't (Abner), some I liked and he didn't (Adonijah), but we have a couple lined up now that I think could be good. I have a strong preference for one over another. It comes with a good nickname. I wonder if it's the name of a boy who is tall and confident, or the name of a boy who is bookish and shy. Or of a boy who is maybe a little bit on the spectrum, as I always suspect I am, who has to be cajoled to look people in the eye and who talks too long and with too much focused interest on obscure topics without understanding the boredom of his listeners.

A blue eyed boy? A brown eyed boy? Your father's are blue. Mine are brown. But three of my four grandparents were blue. I'd be lying if I said I didn't always want blue eyes. Internalized racism? Anti-semitism? Colorism? I don't know, but I'm still pleased to think that you have a 50/50 shot.

I'm already puzzled by the assumptions other people are bringing to you, as if mine aren't bad enough. Your step-granddad planning to buy you Astros onesies. Wondering what sports you will play. Because you're a boy, I guess. Never mind that your father hated sports, and still does, and of the two of us I'm the one who likes the World Cup and America's Cup and half-heartedly keeps up with the Red Sox just because I feel as though I should. Gender is a prison, little male person who is coming into being inside my body right now. I don't know how I'm going to free you of it. I probably can't. I can try to help you. Listen closely to what you tell me. Pay attention to your passions as they bubble into existence.

"We will have this kid for the rest of our lives," L said to me the other day. "This kid. Our son."

Our son. Succotash, still, for the time being.

You.