Some summer mornings have the flow right from the get-go, you know?

One portion of me was considering waking up while another was stubbornly computing a worthwhile conclusion for an unresolved dream sequence.

Daddy?

Even though he’s ten already, his beseeching voice, the ordinary tone when he calls out my name, is still spectacularly charming and filled with lovejoy. He plops on top of me in the bed before continuing. I feel from the warmth of his skin that he’s already been up doing stuff in his room. And I feel from his entire aura that he needs something, or wants it, which is to him pretty much identical.

I don’t think I can go to camp today, Something is messed up with my leg. My knee. He offers this while we basically hug each other good morning.

I knew he wasn’t milking it. It was a basketball camp day and he would skip meals to go to that. I asked him when it started, how much pain from 1 to 10. I felt happy to have an unexpected daddy mission added to my day.

Around 8. He actually takes the mental time out to gauge this; it’s incredibly cute.

Awww!

And it is from doing squats! They made us yesterday during warm-ups. He defended the camp counsellors though, hastening to add that it was his choice to hold them too too long!

We rest together a few sweet moments, he awaiting the daddy resolution to the problem. I tell him okay, what he could do is stay home and rest it today. At least till lunch time. Then we can see if it got better. Meanwhile he could put ice, maybe some cream too. He gives a little squeeze hug at this, like I’d averted a thorny crisis with sheer ingenuity. Really, he just wanted me on his wavelength.

Then… he’s ready to spring off downstairs to find an ice-pak in the freezer when I stop him. There’s another thing we could do too.

What? What other thing, daddy? Intrigued.

The pharmacy opens in about an hour. We could drive downtown — I mean if your leg feels good enough — and look see if they have a knee brace. For extra protection. Like what professional athletes wear. This last bit reoriented his entire day.

Yessss, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s do that. It probably needs it. His glee is infectious now.

He already wears this black sleeve thing on his shooting arm, the right arm. From shoulder to elbow. Even though it is entirely superfluous, designed to stop dripping sweat. But I mean, he’s 10, you know. He’s not dripping like Wilt Chamberlain at half-time or something. Don’t matter though. He has it because Steph Curry, his favorite outside shooter, wears one religiously.

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At the pharmacy we split up. It’s his efficiency plan. Each one checking different aisles till one of us finds the right place. I find it first, but begin scanning the choices, hoping against hope that they have some kid’s options. They seem overstocked on wrist and elbow braces, but not alot of stuff for the knees. Pricey too… more than I was guestimating.

Finally he swings around the corner and studies the shelves I’m inspecting. There’s maybe three different models but the sizes begin at ‘Medium’ and increase from there. The smallest says leg diameter 22 cm. He digs the hole in the middle for the kneecap. And the adjustable straps. I tell him I’m worried they’re too big for him.

But they’re adjustable, daddy. Right?

Then he grabs something from the next shelf over. It’s those beige hospital wrist wraps with metal clasps, but behind them are half a dozen or more knee braces. We find one labelled ‘S/P’. Small/Petite. Stretchy material too. It is going to fit him. But most importantly it’s got the kneecap hole.

No get the black one, daddy. It’s more drippy. Drippy means something like cool or chill-looking in current 4th-grade parlance, I gather. Besides, it matches his Steph Curry arm sleeve.

Later that evening he’s got the whole get-up on, sneakers and red gym shorts too, in the living room with a small rubber kickball, practicing driving to the hoop. Which is a laundry basket. Try to guard me, daddy. I got a new move.

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I think back a decade ago or more. When I told a few good friends, musicians, that I was about to adopt a child. Become a father. At the age I was supposed to begin orchestrating my retirement. They knew me well enough by then to expect the unusual from me. Still, they could not entirely conceal their stupefaction.

Your life is going to change — big time!

Part astonishment. Part warning. Part friendly advice. Part well-wishing. They meant well. And it’s true: it was going to become much rarer and more difficult to play music together. And I regret that. Very much. Playing music together with the right people has been one of the deepest delights of my life.

But I detected something else while noting how they marvelled at my decisions. It was not really my decision, in the way I chose what meals to eat that day or what things to read about. No. I am not completely capable of making all of the surprising creative life-changing decisions which have peppered my lifetime. I recognized that something else implanted them into me. Most I can claim is a smidgen of tolerant openness to their unorthodoxy. Just enough to let the possibilities play across my internal theater.

How blessedly unbelievably fortunate I have been. To instil in myself somehow, still in my youth, to not care a whit about conventional opinion. Not when the iridescent glimmer of a faint intuition glistened somewhere indefinitely, just there, at the edge of my horizon.

_______RS

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