6/27/09 - Blessings

The Highline Park is packed on this mostly-sunny, unsettled day, and we are surrounded by hundreds of people, but no one seems to notice as I get on one knee and open the box with the ring to ask the question I've been waiting to ask. After the obligatory calls to the parents there's pictures on cell phones sent to friends without explanation in hopes of blowing their minds.

As we run to the subway, the clouds that have been gathering over Jersey finally begin their assault on Manhattan, but when we come above ground in Brooklyn, the sun shines bright through the pouring rain. I look East, following the path of the storm, to see a rainbow bending across the sky, and I get the feeling that we have been blessed.

5/22/09 - They Will Soon Forget How Easy it Was

The kids playing in the field behind the Stone House in the Heights of Guam (see here for more info on that) are like dogs in the dog run. The two little boys and three little girls have found fluorescent orange tape that was used to rope off the grass while it was growing this spring, and they are playing tug-of-war and trailing it behind them in streamers of neon as they run, squealing, through the gradually falling dusk.

At first the boys and girls, who are from different families, circle around each other, the two brothers playing with each other, and the girls playing with the girls, until gradually the two groups fall in together, self-conscious for only a moment. One of the girls looks earnestly at one of the boys, both of them holding armfuls of bright orange, and says, "Do you want to play with us?"