Atmospheric River Diary
Or: I'm dreamin of a wet Christmas
’Twas the last night of Hanukkah, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, but then suddenly Kelsey and I were woken up by the sound of jingling bells. Covered in dense 3 a.m. fog, we looked at each other and heard each other thinking, “Is that Auggie? Couldn’t be Auggie. There’s nothing in her crib.” Then Kelsey’s eyes opened wide and she got up from bed. I was confused at first but then understood. Carmy had gotten on top of the 5-foot-tall wall heater in the living room—which has a ledge that’s like two inches max—and was pawing at the decorative garland of bells hanging across the threshold of the hallway.
Today it’s Christmas Eve and the storm is coming. During the last atmospheric river that came through, about a month ago, I was in a kind of a rough spot. Naps were impossible with Auggie. She was usually crying or screaming when I held her. Despite knowing not to take it personally, I was at times taking it extremely personally. I thought it was something I was doing or not doing. I couldn’t figure it out, and I felt like a failure, like an intruder trying to hold someone else’s baby and coax it into believing that I was in fact the father. It was less her screaming than my own frustration with her that plunged me into a series of deep but momentary depressions. One day in November, the rain was coming down and I was pacing our apartment’s living room. It was feeling smaller than usual. Kelsey was getting her hair done, trying to live her own life for a couple hours. As I held her after a failed nap, Auggie was nonstop screaming. I cannot describe the hoarse bleating coming out of her, a sound that probably sounds like loud crying to anyone else, but to me, sounds like life or death. I tried everything and it didn’t stop. My frustration grew, my desperation swelled, and I swatted away bad thoughts. (The actual definition of sanity: When the bad thoughts and feelings go away in a reasonable amount of time.) I was at that point when being home feels like institutionalization. So I stepped outside. The rain fell quickly and fatly. I realized that Auggie had never seen rain before. Immediately she fell quiet, hypnotized. She stared at it and made these weird grunts of acknowledgement like she was saying I have never beheld this and yet it is something I recognize.
As I write this clouds are filling the basin that Los Angeles sits within, all snug in its bed. Being a Florida boy means you’re used to maniacal bouts of sunshine and frequent thunderstorms. But here, when it rains even just a little bit, the city basically shuts down. Everything leaks and the bugs seek refuge inside and all the buildings bulge and get all frumpy and deformed.
Kelsey got these really cute stockings. We have one for Carmy too, it’s a little red flannel one. We hung it on the tree so that she wouldn’t eat it. We will be filling it with coal. It’s the first time Kelsey and I have had a Christmas tree in the eight years we’ve lived together. Christmas was never really my thing. Blame my Judaic heritage, growing up in relative poverty, the rapacious consumerism of a country acutely in need of numbing. However, I’ve been feeling much more of the merriment this year, an actual spark of holiday magic. Auggie has triggered something—at the very least a desire for us to make the apartment more cozy, and to embrace and interpret a tradition. A tree with lights on it, as a matter of course, is enchanting. When the rain comes we’ll sit around its glow.
A few weeks ago Auggie decided that I’m not so bad of a guy. She’s even been digging my humor. During a fussy moment (hers not mine) I ask why the workers at the smile factory are on strike. I say I hope that negotiations with management are moving forward. A half-smile forms on her tiny perfect face like she’s trying to hide it from me. Then I growl like a dog and pretend to attack her flank, and I get the one thing I’ve always wanted but didn’t know I wanted till I had it: her giggles.
🫶🏾