Magic

Max and Thomas at Fort Tryon Park May 2011

The boys are so funny these days. Speaking in full sentences, relating to the world around themselves in ways that constantly have me laughing, shaking my head or trying not to react because whatever they've just said isn't supposed to be funny... but it just is.

They alternately kiss and battle things out. They laugh one minute - usually hysterically giggling - and then they cry the next... equally hysterically. They are quick to cry, but quick to sooth too. No grudges here. Yet.

I think about all of the things from our childhood that seemed so magical - the corner of the backyard where those drippy flowers bloomed and ivy covered the ground, the bushes we climbed in on the corner of 16th and Prospect, the driftwood at Kalaloch, hopping up the hill at River Ranch to serve breakfast, the feeling in your stomach being swung around on the tire swing at Roberta's cabin, Azalea Way at the Arboretum, the little pond in the back yard of Grandma Ellen's house in Novato that always seemed to have turtles in it - random, random things.

And I wonder what the boys will take away.

Will they remember a drizzly Sunday morning with mom, wandering through the park and finding the stone arch? The Intrepid with Papa Gary and climbing inside (and refusing to climb out) of the space capsule? Finding the park in Vermont with the wooden train and galleon with Grandma Beeba? Riding the ski lift for the first time with Daddy? Their first taste of s'mores? Touring the Little Red Lighthouse? Face painting at the Central Park Zoo?

I wonder what they will think was magic.

Weeknights

Sometimes when I'm in Seattle, I think about that new peony plant that Peggy gave me, which has one large bud and may or may not muster the strength to bloom this year. Or I think about what I keep saying are giant poppies in the circle in the middle of the driveway, or the green strawberries clustered on the plants just outside the greenhouse. I wonder how the raspberry canes are doing in all that wind, and whether Tom remembered to take another meat co-op dog bone out of the freezer and put it into the fridge to defrost for Emmy. Sometimes I remember to ask him about one or two of these things over the phone at night, most times I just wait til I can get home and see for myself.