the rest of April...

Spring has almost turned to summer. The boys have less than three weeks left of school, the youngest finishing the grade level with which I feel most familiar, meaning I can't help much from here on out. They are growing so fast.

Tolliver's muscle car was not only the fastest in his 8th grade class but the fastest in school history. The tiny plastic arm might've been a harbinger had we been more attuned. Every once in awhile time shrinks and attention sharpens...

We've celebrated birthdays and superior ratings, NHS induction and another Bobcat Revue, tennis wins and a sweet prom-posal. There is never not music. We've had time to sit on the porch and watch the cat nap in a patch of sun, birds build and scamper, buds begin to open - sometimes even staying long enough for something to reveal itself.

like sand

How do you do the math to make one of these? Hank asked, carrying the blue plastic hourglass that sat on the bathroom counter, a remnant of the boys' learning to brush their teeth for an appropriate length of time.
I have no idea how to do the math to make an hourglass, but we talked about the volume of sand and the diameter of the center hole, about measuring and investigating and how he could maybe create his own formula...

What I do know about is the way time slips, how it flies, how it spreads across the calendar and how we try to squeeze it in. I am acutely aware of the way it feels to hug the boy who was, just yesterday, the size of a kitten, a jellybean. I see time in long hair hanging over the math that's suddenly way harder than long division. There is aural evidence in time's ability to bury sweet little lemon drop voices in gravel. 

What I do know is that time does not heal all wounds. That time forces the regular role of buying new pants to cover ankles, of buying more cereal to keep bellies full. That perceived as running out, say around things like a senior year on the horizon, it can lead to urgency and temptation to control. That it often feels like tumbling forward with each new question, propulsion with every syllable.

Hank stands with a tool meant to measure time mere inches from my face. I remind myself to pay attention. In a few years, in a blink, he will have more answers than I do.

these boys!

 

10/10, no notes

some combination of fish, donkeys and cousins

 plus a couple college visits to round out spring break...

lately

Carrie Newcomer concert, fresh eggs, Newsies audition prep, Ohio for Amy Acton, LEGOS, Columbus Gay Mens Chorus, OMEA contest, garage band, Butterfly Guild's Annie, favorite cat and crochet projects, among other things