Stacking wood, a rainy fall day, the boy is growing up so fast…

I wish I had taken a picture of David helping stack wood today.  Two cords in the rain. Wet, dirty work, and him in a long sleeve T-shirt, soaked and stained in the front from toting wood, a soggy black cap on his head, a big grin on his face as he selected the "just the right" pieces to snug into the stack.  Sure, he's helped out in past years, and maybe he didn't make all the way through the four-hour job this year, but something was different.  Something about turning six, maybe, or going off to first grade, his first year away from the house each weekday, me dropping him off on my way to work; I see it in all sorts of things, but it resonated especially today.  He looked like such a . . . guy.  Like you could look at him and see the man he was going to grow up to be.  Autumn makes me sentimental.  Fall is always a time for taking stock, for mentally standing the family against the doorframe and drawing a pencil mark to show where we've grown to this year.  Except now it's moving so fast I hardly have time to get the pencil out. No matter how hard we work to live with all of our awareness in the present, it's hard in the rush not to slip sometimes and to dwell not only on the anticipation of wonders, but also on the nostalgia for a past that was hardly present long enough for you to take a mental snapshot of it.  Stacking wood on a rainy September day. 

Tags: David, fall

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