Circles

Avery loves to draw circles.  Sometimes, we call them “O”s, sometimes it’s “zeros” but really, they’re all circles, and he’s very good at making them.  When he works, his face tightens with concentration as his little fingers grip the pencil.  His tongue peeks out, a wisp of golden hair falls in his eyes. 

He’s making circles and I’m watching him make circles and we could go on like this forever.

As I see him, my mind wanders back to the baby he was, the way his chin would quiver just before he cried, the way his cry was so soft and almost apologetic.  Sometimes I think of him as a toddler, how he always loved to be held, how he could melt into your lap so lightly, almost without weight.  I think of him now:  determined, a little headstrong, more interested in teaching himself to run, or playing wiffle-ball with his brothers in the fading summer twilight, than in snuggling in anyone’s lap.

Yet there are times, like when he’s quiet and concentrating at the kitchen table, that I can see all the Averys in this one little boy, who is filling the page in front of him with circles, one around another like a bulls-eye, just as my life circles around his.

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