watching the sun move

Normally, we cannot perceive the movement of the sun. At one point it is at this place in the sky, later, it has moved, but if you were to just stand and look at it, you would not notice. This week I painted a barn and some other out-buildings on a local farm. I started at seven in the morning to get as much cool morning time in as possible. At one point, I was painting a south-facing wall as the sun was inching up in the clear sky. As I painted, the arc of the sun's course brought the first gauzy beam of light cross the wall. I watched it happen. It was a quiet, magical moment. If I had been looking for it, it would have happened in a moment of mental distraction and I would have missed it. I saw it because I was so intensely focused on seeing the surface of that wall as I gauged my progress with the paint.

When I was a child, I saw many Royals games at Kaufman stadium. The outfield wall is lined with small billboards that magically change throughout the course of the game. I would often stare at these billboards, waiting to see them change. I never did. I would look at one moment and it would be Pennzoil. Later, the same sign would be John Deer and would realize that I missed the transition. It drove me crazy.

When distant friends and relatives see a child they always comment on how much that child has grown, but parents don't comment from moment to moment or even day to day about that growth. It is happening imperceptibly so that the regular viewer doesn't notice. Like the movement of the sun and those outfield billboards, parents just occasionally notice that their child is different from before. Sometimes this drives me nuts. I want to just sit at stare at David and just watch him change. I will have moments away from him when I think "he is changing right now and I am missing it."

I wonder if a week away from him is enough to perceive any growth from the last time I saw him at the airport a week ago.

I have certainly noticed growth in me. I didn't used to miss people that I was away from. I prided myself on this but it drove Significant Others crazy. I would be gone a week and someone would ask if I missed them and I would look at myself and realize that I hadn't even given them a thought, actually. I learned to lie about that early. Yes, of course I missed you. I saved this bag of airline peanuts for you.

Not now.

Now, I miss my wife and my son so much that I can physically feel their absence in my chest. Tomorrow, I will see them again.

I wonder how much they have grown.