Tim Barrus in the New York Times
Moms need weed.
I am not supposed to say that. I am not supposed to write it either.
There are no moms here. It’s me and the boys.
We have not been in public in three months.
I put all the furniture out on the veranda. We can sit and eat outside. Where the sweet smell of weed wafts upward toward where I think heaven is.
It rains hard in the Blue Ridge. We play soccer in the house.
I don’t need a mom. I have weed. “He’s smoking stuff again.”
A seven-year-old. My eyes to the sky.
I’m up late because that is when the monsters come. Monsters with masks and glowing eyes. I don’t know what to do about the monsters. I refuse to let them watch any images on TV of Donald Trump.
The monsters would come out of the walls.
We do telehealth. Booboos on knees. They’re photographers. Take a picture of the booboo.
I read to them with the monsters sitting quietly in corners on the floor. I like quietly. I am reading Jill Lepore’s, These Truths. They don’t mainly get all of it. Who needs them to get all of it. I only need them to see the real world around them. Nightly rituals usually hit me hard.
The truth is that I am a lucky, lucky man. To have this time with them. These long days of possums and squirrels and snakes and hedge hogs and black bears and marshmellows and woodpeckers and backyard campfires.
The truth is that I do not care about school. Never have. Never will. My job is to challenge them with what they know and what they do not know. Monsters are not real.
Moms need weed.