I’ve been thinking about growing. I’ve been thinking about things that happened 7 years ago, and 20 years ago, and the way that no matter what it feels like in those moments we keep growing. Leo pushed Venus out and she’s been growing. Our work and our dreams and even our bandwidth keeps growing. There’s a banana plant that grows right outside our front door. Once a year, the gardeners cut it down, and once a year it grows right back. I remember, when I was little, that my mother would refer to a friend’s grown teenage children. They were enormous. Now when we see four year-olds we can’t believe how big they are. When we see college students, it’s hard to believe how young they are. As I paid a meter yesterday, a mother explained to her child that the sidewalk was uneven because of a great big magnolia tree whose roots were erupting from the pavement. So many of the milestones we never could imagine, we now live. I close my eyes. I can hear the rustle of palms overhead. The breeze is warm. The light glows orange through my eyelids. I take a deep breath and keep growing.