1.

I bought the train pyjamas at a thrift store in Vermont two years ago. What a find! Perfect condition, and only two dollars. “Let’s not wear them until they fit you,” I said. He was three. They were size seven. He slept one night with the pyjamas under his pillow and did not sleep one cool night without them after that.

Last night he saw the holes in the knees and elbows and cried. “Take a photograph of me in them. I will never wear them again.” He does not want to wear them out. He wants me to make them into something else, something to keep forever. I dare not cut something so precious.

2.

Iris has never particularly liked the upcycled sweater dress I made when she was not-yet-two, but I still did not want to get rid of it. It is what freed me from the confinement of patterns and got me sewing again. This morning, she put it on. “It is so snuggly and soft,” she said, “and it still fits.”

The pants that I made a little while later, on the other hand, are no longer snuggly and soft, nor would they still fit, if they existed. They were worn to rags. The woolen rags were cut into strips. The strips were rolled to make the tight inner heads for wool-stuffed dolls. What do  you make of that?

Where goes precious ephemeral youth when the years pass?

The sprout, the shoot, the bud, the bloom, the seed. The sprout.

Youth goes to seed. Seed springs forth youth.

I am blessed, for I have gone to seed.

Three years ago, in June of 2017, I took my children into the field near our house & told them, “Dance.”

Akiva had me attach the wagon to his bicycle so that he could pull a trailer.

He rode in small circles in front of the house as Martin put the summer tires on the car.

He rode in small circles as Iris ran in small circles in front of the house, trying to get a small kite aloft.

He rode in small circles on his small bike as Iris ran in small circles with a small kite

and Martin changed the tires on the car from winter to summer.

Winter to summer, summer to winter. Wheels.

Small circles, small circles, small circles.