play ball

The boys do things on a daily basis that heighten my awareness of life's precariousness. Cross the street a block ahead of me on bikes, for example, following traffic signals and looking both ways but still: sharing the street with motorized vehicles.
Jumping from the high dive, eating grapes, playing catcher.

I can see it though, the way the game makes them come alive, a wad of big league chew and that heart-thumping hope of bat to ball.

I vaccilate between overwhelming gratitude that they are here and mine and busy, and mundane irritance over the pile of fingernails on the couch side table.
I vow to put up with stinky cleats and sunflower seed shells stuck in the washing machine as long as they are here and they are mine and I get to watch them play.