FATHER'S DAY with Fletcher, Ami + Ellery — by their dad, Fletcher Ami and I spend a lot of time together in the kitchen. He’s gotten good at cutting vegetables and cracking eggs. He insists on stirring the roux when we make gumbo and he likes to make chaga tea with grated ginger and cinnamon. He’s fascinated with the outside world and the changing seasons, now in June he continues to point out all the “signs of spring”. When we go for walks he can’t make it more than a few steps without stopping to inspect a new flower or a nice piece of trash. He goes searching for tadpoles and cranky lizards and makes potions with twigs, grass clippings and dirt with some bits of dead flowers. He’s obsessed with bugs and has me read him chapters about stag beetles and locusts until I have to plead for a break. Last summer the river by our house flooded and a day or two later as the water receded it left behind puddles full of tiny slippery trout and catfish which Ami gathered and returned to the river, thanking each for its service as they wriggled through his fingers. Sometimes I can’t believe my luck, to do all this with my sweet little son, snubbing our noses at all that’s wrong with the world. And what’s more, I get to do it all again with our smiley girl Ellery Evangeline.
Fletcher, Jordan, Ami, Ellery, and their dog Reno live in Brooklyn and spend their free time in Delaware County, New York.