Spring Garden

Today, images from the garden in late spring…bright marigold, crisp lettuce.

Photographs by the author.

Roses for Bosnia

Joy — roses Alex and I planted last summer, after I came home from Bosnia, have returned….

Coastal Sky and Shadow

Images from a gorgeous Sunday in Portsmouth (top, middle) and Hampton Beach (bottom), on the coast of New Hampshire. Breeze, clouds, and rain brought, at last, a break from days of oppressive heat.

All photographs by the author. Our family has grown to love Portsmouth’s Flatbread Pizza Company — we’re not alone — for its fresh ingredients, strong connections to local farmers, and wonderfully accommodating bakers and servers (we have a *lot* of food allergies).  

Brick and Shadow II

A final image from May: my classroom receiving early morning light, before fluorescence, before conversation, before the sweltering heat….

Brick and Shadow

Another image from May, New England shadow and light at mid-day…

Season’s End

High school baseball seasons in New England are painfully short. This one began with deep snow in March and ended with heavy rain in May, washing out our last — and most eagerly anticipated — game of the year, against our biggest rival. Today, at season’s end, a little sadness, and much gratitude for the players, fellow coaches, and grounds crew, who made this brief season so memorable. We’ll get ‘em next year.

Photograph by the author. View from the third base coach’s box at our home field, where I pace, and pace, and pace, minding runners and flashing signs.

Keeping Score

Even though I quit playing organized baseball more than a decade ago, I still feel the same unruly, boyish intensity every time I’m near a field. Whether I’m coaching high school players or rooting for my own young kids, I want to be inside the lines, in the batter’s box, on the mound. My passion could not be purer or more misplaced.

The nervous energy has to go somewhere, especially when I’m in the stands. This season, I started keeping score, painstakingly, in a small spiral notebook. Ages ago, my father taught me the art; my style and font are his.

The result is something extraordinary, like a musical score, a maze of marks evoking the deeper beauty and drama of the game. During the action, my attention to the scoresheet gets me off my son’s back. After, it gives me a dozen ways to praise him. It’s what we call win-win.

If you’re a baseball fan and confused by this scoresheet, a bit of explanation: at this level, every kid bats every inning, but after three outs the bases are cleared. Officially, we parents say that no one is keeping score. Yeah, right.