Just a few pictures from the Cubs' opening day game (which they won).
There are only two seasons: winter and Baseball. - Bill Veeck
Just a few pictures from the Cubs' opening day game (which they won).
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I am moved by the juxtaposition of it all.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, I was dining at Capital Grille in Manhattan, on West 51st Street. I had a perfectly prepared salmon, and for the table we ordered, and promptly devoured, the Lobster Mac ‘N’ Cheese. I had two glasses of a nice white wine, and after dinner, one of my hosts and I wrapped up the night in the bar at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel. Twenty-four hours before that, I sat with a number of other legal professionals at má pêche, enjoying numerous courses that included black bass, with citrus and gooseberry, and an escarole salad with butternut squash, egg, and goat cheese. All that not being enough, I wrapped up the evening with others at Faces and Names, a bar and restaurant on West 54th where the comfortable chairs make it easy to sit back and trade war stories. I am back in Charlotte now, at Trinity Presbyterian Church, on Providence. My boys are on each side of me at this round table, and my daughter and the other girls from Girl Scout Troop #1335 are busy volunteering. They are serving dinner: penne pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs. Tonight, our Trinity family welcomes, as we do every Wednesday during the winter, twelve of our Charlotte neighbors who need a warm place to stay. Charlotte neighbors who know, when they close their eyes for the night in our Fellowship Hall, that they are safe. Across the city, as part of the appropriately named Room in the Inn program, many other faith communities are doing the same. Many miles to the north, LegalTech continues at the New York Hilton. LegalTech bills itself as the “largest and most important legal technology event of the year.” Every year at this time, attorneys, litigation support staff, IT professionals, and technology vendors from across the country converge on New York for three days to discuss the latest software, to pitch services, and to make, and renew, valuable business connections. The days are filled with keynotes and panels. Hot topics this year are network security, data breaches, information governance, and, of course, the ubiquitous e-discovery. During breaks, attendees “walk the floor,” a great misnomer, since there are, in fact, several floors, all lined with companies offering innovative solutions for law firms and their clients. A number of these companies also have private suites upstairs at the Hilton or in nearby hotels so they can offer more detailed demonstrations of their products and services to clients and prospective clients. And the nights are for entertaining. I know from my trip to this year’s LegalTech and past experience that there are indeed great people and great things there. But, still, this juxtaposition. Twelve mattresses line two of the walls of our Fellowship Hall. Six on the left, for the women, and six on the right, for the men. Two of our guests needed to move them around just a little tonight, though, so they could stay together. A father and his fifth-grade daughter. After dinner, there are no hotel bars or fancy lounges to which we can retreat. As a number of our guests make themselves comfortable on their mattresses, M and I continue to sit at the table, and we continue to talk. He’s the father who is here with his daughter, and he’s got an idea. It’s an idea that can better not only his and his daughter’s lives, but the lives of others in our community who are experiencing homelessness. It’s actually a very good idea. I will let him share it with the world when he is ready, but already I find that I am rooting for him. It is, by far, the best presentation I have seen in the last forty-eight hours. It comes time to track down my two boys, who have wandered off from the table, for it is nearing their bedtime. I find my six-year-old first, and after my wife tells me that she and my daughter will meet us at home, he and I walk together to the basketball goals by the parking lot. My nine-year-old and two sons of tonight’s other volunteers are playing two-on-two. M’s daughter is the fourth. She’s good. They play for a few more minutes, and my boys and I hop in the car and leave. M’s daughter joins everyone else inside. In New York, people are making dinner plans right now, and after dinner they will gather late into the night. As I drive away from Trinity, though, I cannot help but think of those in our Fellowship Hall who are preparing for sleep and how those of us who attend LegalTech are all so fortunate that we get to meet each year in such a great place. We are fortunate that with our careers comes the knowledge that we need not worry each morning where we will rest our heads in the evening. And in this great juxtaposition of it all, I cannot help but think that this good fortune is far more than we could ever need or will ever deserve. Wheels roll
on a cool fall evening. A golden, tired sun, weak from another summer, heads to slumber behind the house. Trees, just now showing signs of wear, permit themselves to be heard. A gentle rustling of leaves in the wind. He sits quietly on the front porch, looking beyond home's shadow cast across the front yard toward Main Street. He has a clear view of life which never stops. Children enjoying precious moments of play before being called in for supper. People walking past on sidewalks. Wheels rolling in the street. His mother stands behind the screen door, her face, like stone, yet her eyes always sympathetic. As she brushes away a strand of gray hair she cries silently, lifting her other hand to her mouth hoping to catch the sound. This time she does, unlike many others late at night face down on the sofa when muffled weepings tiptoe through the stillness. It is then the other children wake, and walk closer, peering through open doorways at their mother, without understanding. She wipes away the tears, pushes the screen door open and turns to pat on the head the little girl that follows. Her job is to hold the door. Do not let it slam shut. On the wooden porch the mother steps to her son and rests her hand on his shoulder. His body becomes more fragile with every passing month. Bones beneath a pale sheet. His expression is blank, as though he were tired of seeing life. But he's only twenty-two. Behind his eyes, however, is a teenager, deprived of a future. The accident froze him at seventeen. Life for him has never moved on. It never will. Meanwhile, the sun has drifted off to sleep, and the autumn night coexists with the streetlight on the corner. A happy couple walks hand-in-hand beneath the October sky. Down the road, electric store signs flicker. In the street, leaves are stirred by a passing car. All around, others' lives go on. She lifts her hand from his shoulder and pushes him inside. The little girl is careful to close the screen door gently. Outside another car passes, unobserved from an empty porch. Wheels turn. His life stands still. (written in law school and posted today as part of Throwback Thursday) This was the nursery for each of them. In their earliest years, their afternoon naps, their bedtime stories, and their good-night lullabies were all here. We brought our daughter home to this room in 2002, and she made way in 2005 for a little brother. In 2008, we brought home their little brother to this same nursery. Just as each of our children has changed over the years, so, too, has this room. Gone is the dresser we used for the changing table. Gone are the green walls and the carpet. And, of course, gone is the crib. My daughter, now twelve and in seventh grade, has again made this her room. She sleeps in a white canopy bed that extends from the same side of the room where we’d placed the crib. Her wooden desk stands where we used to read in a green-checkered rocking chair. On another wall she has a vanity. Her room is now the room of a girl caught between past and future. There are American Girl dolls and stuffed animals. There are yellow sticky notes and a whiteboard, serving to remind her of important school projects and events. A few months ago, after walking in here for something, I sat on the bed and simply marveled at how infrequently I now come in here. Years ago, I slept as many nights in the rocker or on the floor beside her crib as I slept in my own bed. Now, she retreats here to read, to do homework, to write, and to dream. Here, she readies herself for school, for church, and for all her other activities. No more does she cry in the night and need me to hold her closely, rocking her gently while walking back and forth across this floor. Gone are the days and nights when she needed me for everything. No more are the lullabies. Which is why, on a night near midnight, with Christmas just a few days away, I am surprised to be kneeling beside her bed. Her brothers have each in the past two weeks been sick, and tonight is her turn. Coughs and fever have deprived her of peaceful sleep, and she wandered into our room seeking help. Like so many years ago, I carried her into this room, laid her down, and made sure she was settled. Like so many years ago, I am beside her. And all I have ever known to do at times like this is sing. I sing from bedtimes past. I wish you sunrays and Saturdays It has been several years since I last sang her to sleep, and I wait for this sweet girl, between worlds, to tell me to stop. Only she doesn’t. All I want is for you to have
I hear her falling gently to sleep, and I continue singing others. My hope that her sleep will last is just one of the many hopes I have for her. I hope she continues to be the amazing, incredibly smart, beautiful, funny person that she already is. I hope she will do marvelous things. I hope she will find something that moves her deeply in each of her days. I hope life will never get in her way. Selfishly, I hope there will always be times when she needs me, times when I can perhaps make everything right just by singing. I then begin a sweet, country ballad no one has heard before. No one except her on nights like this long ago. Its lyrics and tune, like parenting and like all of us, are a work in progress. From the moment I first saw you I knew I walk slowly across these bricks,
trying to lose myself in the perfect balance that sets in every year at this time, when the sun seems to lose its heat and the winds begin to grow. And as one rises and the other falls there is a point at which all things are equal. A point when the winter winds are still children and the heat waves from earlier days have calmed to rays of gentle warmth. As certain as the cold and darkness that approach, so is this balance, this utopia that comes first, like the instant before death when the human heart is calmed by an enlightening glimpse of Heaven. In the seasons, this glimpse, this harmony, is autumn. It is a time of pumpkins and leaves, browns, reds, oranges, and the gold that Nature sprinkles over the land. It is a time that means back to school and a time that brings to mind friends from yesterday. The season makes me wish for more of the precious autumns that have been lost forever. This autumn is no different, for today I've returned to a familiar place, trying to feel the same as I did years ago when I stepped here for the first time. But I can't. As I walk across this place where the leaves pad my steps, I watch others carrying on, dreaming their dreams, smiling, loving, and enjoying the season. I stop. Even though I am home on a quiet autumn day with a baby winter wind blowing and the colored leaves bathing in golden rays, it's not the same. I weep because the autumns here are no longer mine. |
AuthorJosh Durham is a lawyer, husband, dad, and an astronaut. Okay, he made that last part up, but he did go to Space Camp. Twice. Josh lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife, three kids, and a cat. Archives
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