June 26. My son remembers the trashy lights in the buses. My daughter is delighted with the sea of red taillights at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. The smell of gasoline and trash in the streets. We go to the playground, to Playa Betty’s and their old school. Everything instantly comes alive with countless details. The children are more moved by the memories than children, I think, should be. It makes me scared. Then again, there are millions of biographies like this.

June 25. Strange 36 hours in Gothenburg. Because I can sleep whenever I want, I sleep a lot, and in such a way that I do not change the time zone. The bright light outside puzzles me. – In the last minute it occurred to me that I have to print out the “travel permission”, which their mother is supposed to sign, twice, because in the corrected version I am also supposed to sign that I will bring the children back as agreed. I have the page copied at the hotel. Then I sleep for another hour.

June 24, Gothenburg. Dinner with the kids. Who is looking forward to what the most. I’m completely spent because of jetlag.

​​June 23. Flying to Sweden to pick up the children. Got an email from Swedish Social Services reminding me that it would be illegal if I did not bring them back after the end of the agreed time.

June 22. Ben Folds at the Beacon Theatre.

June 21. Stunning insight: If I don’t get the laundry done today, it won’t be done before the kids get here.

June 20. How in the morning, over the course of the first coffee, I get completely sucked into my job. It’s almost embarrassing, and rude to J. I’m unresponsive. I can barely wrest any of my attention away to other things. Yet I consider myself lazy beyond measure. But I guess there’s a reason I am pretty good at my job.

June 19. Found some music I made up and recorded when I was eighteen – thirty-five years ago. I am surprised by some of the complexity, but for the most part it sounds like a cartoon being played back too fast.

Edit: Father’s Day in Germany is not upcoming, but already was. I could not gather that from the conversation with my father.

June 18. Called my father because my own kids texted me something, my daughter even made a video. Turns out it’s not even Father’s Day in Germany yet. I know maybe three sentences I can say to my father.

June 17. When you no longer have to ask each other how you are doing.