matching tracksuits

After several days of rain, days of grey skies that look identical at ten in the morning and three in the afternoon, days of — let’s be honest — Polish-looking skies, the bright light of the dawn this morning literally stopped me mid-step. A ribbon of yellowish, pinkish, orange light (at least to this colorblind fellow) stretched across the backyard, with a muted blue sky rising above.

It was a day of clarity. The Girl, clearly growing older, conquered her first extended Lego-building session. Sure, there was a lot of help, but that was to be expected: the lower age on the box is still a year beyond Lena’s experience. We worked together, exploring the wonder of perspective drawings in instructions, how one could position the in-progress creation just right beside the instructions and see exactly where the next blocks belonged. By the end, I was only checking; she was doing the building.

Relationships clarified themselves further. That the Girl loves her little brother has been obvious from the start, but today she was able to sit and actually play with him for extended periods without the silly five-year-old drama (after all, she’s six now) that made every other playtime an exercise in self-entertainment for the Girl. Today, she seemed truly interested in helping E enjoy himself. Until the end, when the silly L returned. But still, progress. Growth.

And in the evening, with the clouds still at bay (they’re scheduled to return this weekend), the moon shone clearly through the branches of the trees, turning this morning’s watercolor into an etching. I went out with the intention of doing some bracketed shots for an HDR shot.

In the end, after merging the photos and doing the requisite tone mapping, I realized the original was better. It whispered the hints of mystery that have kept the generations looking upward and feeling comforted by the clarity.

A pile of leaves in the backyard cannot go to waste. It calls — begs — for family photos.

It’s not big, but it’s all we’ve got.