I often have to pick up my son from his high school. It’s not a straight route from my school, so it takes longer than I’d like and it can be more frustrating than it needs to be.

Every day, like yesterday, I see another high school student – a young woman — walking in the opposite direction, and I swear, there is not a day that she doesn’t have the biggest, brightest smile on her face.

It’s one of those smiles that makes you want to smile, too, and seeing her is a nice counter to feeling frustrated by the drive. The world needs more smiles like hers.

Peace (and Happy),
Kevin

Enter the greenhouse at Smith College this time of year, and your first reaction is to merely stand still and close your eyes. Close your eyes and breathe deep. Breathe in the scent of flowers of many varieties, all in bloom. Outside, although it is a sunny March day, snow still remains on the ground. A Nor’easter storm is bearing down. Winter remains, a stubborn creature. But here, in this glass enclosure, contained and curated, the bulbs for the annual show have come into bloom, and the result is a magnificent reminder for the senses that the season is in the midst of shift. Soon, there will be no need for a greenhouse enclosure. No need to wait in line with other people for the experience. No need to follow the crowd along a designated path. Soon, the sleepy seeds of the soil will be coming up in yards and flower beds and in random places not yet known. Soon, yes, but not quite yet.

Peace (and Flowers),
Kevin

I can’t quite believe that our youngest son is a high school senior, with college on the horizon and just a few more months in our city’s school system.

Sometimes, the transitions in our lives ahead become crystal clear.

Yesterday, I drove more than three hours into New York City to reach the New York Armory to see him run for less than a minute with his high school indoor track relay team at the Nike Indoor Nationals.

It seems absurd when you consider the hours of travel versus the time of running like that, and I could have watched the webcast from the comfort of home, but it was important to me, and to him, that I make the drive, to send him encouragement from the stands, to be there to support him.

In his pink shoes, at the sound of the starting gun, he was flying, going so fast from starting line to the baton handoff with his teammate that he was nearly a blur from the stands, disappearing as I tried to capture the moment on my phone while shouting encouragement.

Everything becomes metaphor at some point, doesn’t it?

Driving back home later that night (he is staying in the city with teammates, to cheer on another crew of runners who will compete today), I was complaining to myself in the car about the long drive (it was raining) but then reminding myself: hold on to these kinds of moments because they won’t be available much longer.

Peace (in the Time Passing),
Kevin

PS — his Speed Medley Relay (SMR) team came in 7th place, out of 30 teams.

It was a decent New England snowstorm for March. It happened mostly overnight from Friday into Saturday, so there was little impact on school or travel. It was fluffy but sort of heavy. So, sticky. There was more than enough to cover mostly everything.

And Rayna, our younger dog, had a blast in the morning, barreling around the backyard after uncovering one of her toys — it’s actually a horse ball, but the handle was long ago ripped/bitten off — and now she is adept at putting her snout inside the hole (where the handle used to be) and tossing the ball into the air, then bopping it off her nose, as she races around.

I was trying to catch her in the act with my phone’s camera, but only got this shot. It’s her eyes, though, that I like most — she’s in her intense play mode here.

Then I decided to go another step further, since I liked that image so much, and put it into an art app called Oilist, and made two different variations, capturing the app’s process along the way. I folded both iterations into this video: Rayna’s Art Show.

Peace (and Dogs),
Kevin