You can't fish all day if you don't start in the morning.

From sunrise donuts to campfire s'mores under a giant pink moon, the boys pulled so many bass out of Poppy's pond this week. They didn't actually fish all day, putting rods down for things like board games and chainsaws, french fries and BB guns.

Tucker circled the perimeter when it was time to go, tenderly recognizing the best gift of resuming more regular activity: time we can once again spend with family.

outside

 Outside is the place where their hearts go to school.

spring's memo: grow

lately

He carries a Garfield book everywhere, like an oxygen tank.

missing

One of the cats has been missing all week.

The boys made flyers to post at the park, fragile paper pleas, and they've been paying extra attention to their remaining pet, worried about his feline grief. 

They've managed school on the computer, practiced daily piano and mounted backyard nerf dart battles. They tend to hold it together all day, and sob at bedtime.

We've each spent part of the past year feeling made of glass.

It's difficult to watch the boys grapple with the continuous presence of an absence, an exquisite loneliness.

Are we in the homestretch of the hard part, I wonder?

Will the cat come home?

We only know luck by its opposite.

We spend lots of time staring out the window, waiting.

The ghostly outline of hopscotch boxes on the driveway are still visible after light rain.

Nothing lasts. This is not news, but we cherish things all the more when we remember it.

with wonder

Do you ever think there's an older version of yourself out there? Looks like you, thinks like you, just further ahead?

If you're traveling at the speed of light, do you cast a shadow? And anyway, how do you stop if you're actually going that fast?

Would you eat applesauce if you didn't know what it was?

I admire the way small people can ponder big questions with sincerity and curiosity, without irony, without self conscious embarrassment, without sophistication. I love when Tucker wonders aloud. 

contentment

Virtual school has not left much room for contribution or possibility or insight.

What it has given our family is a lot of flexibility.

We field tripped to a metro park in the middle of the week, to practice archery skills and admire invasive yellow flowers, to identify creatures and wade in creeks. It feels so good to take the boys places where they can spend the day engaged in things that do not indicate any impending disassembly of their contentment.

all the emergence

I wander around the yard, not doing any work, just taking in all the emergence. 

Just trying to ignore all the dirt. 

The mason bees have hatched. Bulbs are sending scouts toward the sun, and buds blink open from branches. Mother Nature’s to-do list seems steadily ticked off. Mine, not so much. 

I basically just feed the boys, and fold laundry. Plus manage school at home.

The guy loading groceries into the back of the van this afternoon wondered how many refrigerators we have. Not sure fridges matter as much as the mouths of three growing boys.

All around me life appears in a state of anticipation, seasons and meals and immunity alike, and it feels like a certain forward movement may prevail.