Spring.

Baseball season is upon us, and I have a daughter. A year ago I would have not even believed I was writing the latter half of that sentence, and, if I could have come to terms with the fact of offspring, I would have prioritized the two changes in precisely that order. Today, I have a daughter and I’m listening to an early Sox game, more in disbelief that Tavarez is pitching a good game than I am that I have a daughter. I’m cool with the daughter thing, and she is actually good for my writing. I’ve learned to type more efficiently as my eyes lock on hers rather than the keyboard.

I am fortunate to work a schedule that allows me to spend time with her. The way it works out I have her most mornings on my own, and two times a week all day. Until she learns to do more than ape the phrase “I love you” and wet three diapers an hour, I sit on my couch with her on my chest or on a pillow, and try to commit the past thirty years of my life to text. I’m looking forward to our first red wagon, feeding her produce bought from friends who work land that I’ve walked, teaching her how numbers talk to each other and how the world, on a good day, is a beautiful thing to smell. Until then my life is memory and finding the vocabulary to describe the present, a present I have no points of reference to describe. It’s like drawing a circle on Mars.