My mom looks at me and says the affectionate form of my name:
“Edichka?” she’s speaking in Russian. “What’s wrong?”
Beau’s on his first soccer team. He’s four now. We’re on the sideline, me and my mom, watching his game. He’s not chasing the ball or even running. He’s just standing there with his palm in the air. It’s casting a shadow over his face.
“Look at Beau.” I’m speaking in Russian too. “He’s blocking the sun with his hand.”
I’m sentimental about many things.
Especially now, these days, it feels like I’m seeing, for the first time, things that have always been there:
The boy standing in a field, grass and people and sun everywhere, his hand up, shade across his face—I see this. I’ve seen it a thousand times in my life. I’ve seen a thousand people do it, but not like this. Not this way.
It moves me now.
But it’s not just with my kids.
It’s everywhere:
When my wife asks me for a glass of water after dinner; when I buckle my belt in the morning and miss a loop; when I drive past a hat—some random, dirty, discarded thing on the side of the road—and later, when I pass the same spot, it’s gone.
These completely typical things are moving me, too. More and more they are. Simply witnessing them. Simply seeing how unremarkable they are. My God.
I explain this to mom.
“How strange,” she says. She’s still looking at me. “I’ve never seen the world like that.”
It’s quiet for a moment. Beau is running after the ball again. A car alarm is going off in the distance.
“But then,” mom looks back at the field, “I’ve never lived your life, baby.” It’s quiet again. “Maybe it’s why you do what you do for work.”
The whistle blows.