This

The light of the fall evening has begun to fade as the sun rests behind the buildings of the old middle school.  I have friends who went to school here, more years ago than I want to count, but it has long since been closed and converted for other uses.  The grass on one part of the field is crisp and dead, straw-colored.  The two fenced baseball fields are still tended to by the local little league, though the idea of being "tended" is perhaps generous as the state of disrepair has been a constant since my oldest boy started playing here almost five years ago.

I view baseball season with, at best, reluctant enthusiasm.  I want my boys to play, to learn, and to grow.  I see it happening season after season on these fields.  But for the most part, the weather in spring and fall is miserable, fluctuating between oppressive heat and biting cold, both with equal parts wind.  The wind is so constant here that the trees grow at an angle, and I can frequently be heard lamenting that baseball is not an indoor sport.

For six months out of the year, our entire life revolves around baseball.  As each of my boys has grown old enough to play, the schedule has become increasingly hectic.  With the increase in chaos comes a corresponding shift in my temperament.  I bristle at those first calls from new coaches as they lay out the schedule for us, explaining exactly how much of our between-season free time they will be taking away.

Lately, I find myself growing more and more disgruntled with the shuffle, with squeezing needs into spare moments, with knowing that one small shift will throw off the entire day.

On this particular day, there has been a small shift, I am already exhausted, and the end of baseball season cannot arrive soon enough.  I drive to pick up my oldest, and while I wait for practice to end, I begin reading a book I have tried to start several times before.

I am parked on what used to be the basketball courts of the middle school.  The hoops and backboards have been taken down, but the paint on the asphalt has not yet faded entirely.  I have pulled my car into one of the fading keys.  I roll down the windows; it is a perfect evening, the air still and tinged with the smell of leaves changing colors.  The binding of my book cracks slightly as I open it.

                People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me
                it's quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations,
                with each passing moment.  A single hour can consist of thousands of different
                colors.  Waxy yellows, cloud-spat blues.  Murky darnesses.

I close a finger between the pages of my book, lean my head back, and look out the window into the autumn half-light.  In the distance I can hear the boys playing--the sharp aluminum ping of a bat making contact and the far-off echoes of voices still untouched by manhood.  Childhood permeates the air, and the whole world is color, both muted and vivid, saturating each sound and scent and feeling.

Practice will end, I will finish this book, and we will slowly, moment by moment, crawl toward each new season.  But for now, there is this.



With credit to Markus Zusak's novel The Book Thief.