On starting small

The Premier League season has— actually, y’know, I don’t really feel like talking about that.

Arsenal were knocked out of the Champions League in the semifinals, it was— ah, never mind.

Let’s see.

I got around to reading James, and there’s something fantastic—

We haven’t landed on a name for your cousin yet, but Bukayo has been floated enough times as a joke that—

The Celtics just—

Jayson Tatum—

The EFL Championship playoffs once again—

I wrote a novel, it’s called—

Ajax—

The Red Sox are absolutely—

I’m afraid—

I’m excited—

The problem with the NHL—

I wonder if Pogačar and Vingegaard—

The folks who attend the NFL draft—

I really hope Sinner and Alcaraz—

I’m rereading Those Who—

Yesterday was surprisingly beautiful, weather-wise. I took a long walk to the beach and after a spring full of rainy stretches it’s as if the greenery all exploded into life at once. There are these three Japanese maple trees around our house and I love them very much: two out back and then one just outside the bathroom window in the side yard. The story I’ve heard is that my Nunu, your great-grandmother, was given a gift certificate to go buy one established tree which her daughters would help her plant. But Nunu never liked getting help, and also she liked watching tiny plants grow, so instead of one established tree she went and bought three little trees that she could plant herself.

In the years since then those three have fully established themselves, and over the last week their leaves have unfurled into such wonderful umbrellas of shade.

And then just the other day your Auntie J and I looked out the front window and noticed something new: a fourth Japanese maple. A tiny little one that comes up to my knees, that you could tackle if you got a running start. It must have come from Nunu’s side yard maple, a volunteer seedling who made its way into the garden out front and found soil that it liked. And its leaves, too, have opened up into the season, so that it now provides just that much shade for the ground below it.

We’ll talk more about sports later: about marketing a rivalry and planning for mediocrity, about jersey release schedules and what it means to play at Wembley and why I sent your Uncle Ben twenty-two texts over the past week about a kid named Lamine Yamal.

But for now I’m mostly just pleased with that little tree.