He’s a toddler and he lives next door and because I have been nowhere for months, I watch him more than I would have pre-COVID. I watch him with wonder the way I watched the trees this spring grow from spindly, gray sticks into the lush, green canopies they are now. Pre-COVID, I wouldn’t have been dazzled by the slow, daily growth of both the trees and the boy. I would have noticed spring in all its beauty, of course. And I would have noticed the toddling boy, too, smiled and waved at him before I got into my car. But my head would have been elsewhere. I’d have been thinking about traffic, and where I was going, and did I have my phone? These things would have been my focus, not the little boy next door…