On my morning walk today at the community center, I saw a man and his son next to the ball field with a puppy on a leash. The boy and his puppy went into the fenced-in ball field to play and were soon running madly around the outfield. I could hear the boy’s laughter from the far side of the trail’s loop. 

By my second time around the loop, there were a dozen kids and four or five men out on the field, with several families watching from the bleachers. Little League practice, the first of the season.

After a year of pandemic fear and upheaval, coupled with one of the nastiest political seasons I can remember, the sights and sounds of that March morning were reassuring, heartwarming, and generally good for my soul. But it was more than that, seeing those folks going about the rituals of spring, living their lives while Frankie and I watched from under the pines. It was something I sorely needed.

It was balance.