The ground is wet, finally, and the air smells of marigolds. It is officially fall but the zinnias have not given up their shades of sunset. The boys are underslept and overschooled and it is not even October. There is so much to do, and such a fine line between being better - at being a student or being a parent - and being happy.
Out front the boys inspect each other's eyeballs, comparing colors and laughing at their own reflections. Out back they refill bowls with taco soup and talk about the books they're reading, about the genetic incompatibility of hares to breed with rabbits. Andy seems to have had strong ink in the printer, eye pigment and appetite and interest in biology all around.
There are so many household particulars to sort, college visits and halloween costumes, computer repairs and pants that fit for homecoming. Things go from feeling logistically impossible to emotionally brutal to financially chaotic, until I find myself studying the irises of my boys. Are they amber or hazel or that color the poets call bistre? My usual inclination is to iron out all the details, but I'm wondering more about resting in the complexity some too.