photographs

One of my favorite vistas in the city where I live.  I also love the pale steel-gray of the late-winter sky, which seems both dense and light at the same time.

Last Friday, Grace, Whit, and I walked home from school in the snow.  We stopped at our local playground and they spent an hour running, jumping, building snowmen, and laughing.  I laughed with and at them, my fingers got numb, and I kept flashing back to the many, many hours we’ve spent at this park over the almost 12 years we’ve lived here.

Like this hour, in May 2003, when Grace was 7 months old.  In the same swings she’s standing on above.

And this hour, in June 2006, when 16 month old Whit couldn’t stop hurling himself down the green plastic slide.  It was covered in snow last week, but he still went down it over and over again.

Then, now, sunshine, snow: it all blends together into a beautiful swirl of memory and longing and color and life.

I found this picture, from last summer at Walden Pond, while I was looking through iPhoto the other day.  I sent it to Grace, noting that I was looking forward to another early morning swim at Walden this summer.  She sent it right back, with this addition.  First, I have absolutely no idea how to do this.  Second, I think she is hilarious.

Still life of Whit at eight years old: a Bruins jersey (Seguin), a Bruins tee shirt (Thomas), and Harry Potter’s Quidditch robes.

Today, an old one – this is a few weeks before Grace’s first birthday, at our friends’ house in Nantucket.  It was also our holiday card that year.  Pictures like this one catapult me straight into the tunnel of memory, where yesterday and today collapse together, and Grace’s babyhood seems like an instant and also a lifetime ago.