Thread by @HoarseWisperer

So, yesterday was my annual trip with my son to our favorite fishing spot.

It isn’t really about fishing.

It’s about ritual and routine.

It’s about the things in life that hold fast no matter what else might change.

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Every year, we lay down in the pine straw under that big old pine along the bank and take a selfie.

That one annual image distills so much of what I love into a single picture:

Fatherhood, tradition, togetherness, our relationship, my son...

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I have always acutely felt the speed of his childhood rushing past.

It is a constant current, a persistent tug. I have felt it since he was born.

It is the whisper of an immutable truth about being a parent to a child:

The days are long but the years are short.

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For this one day though, beneath an old pine beside a quiet lake, all of time slows.

There are no toddler years that raced by too fast, no future graduation that will come too soon.

There is only me and my son lying in the pine straw, his childhood immortal.

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