...Atop a Blanket in the Living Room. NY, NY.

Winter is taking her final breaths tonight. She's flipping through her songbook and playing her way down the coastline towards the next hemispheres. And I, for one, couldn't be happier.

Tomorrow will mark a change in this city. The women will hit the streets in fresh skirts and short sleeves, sunglasses and sharp colors. Spring in New York City is a season of display. I, for one, will be out in Central Park enjoying my ritual 7-mile track in rollerblades.

But before tomorrow is tonight.

Tonight, the full moon's gleam sits like a glaze on the rooftops of Upper Manhattan.

And tonight I'm thinking about Lily.

Lillian, or Lily as she likes to be called, is the kind of girl who you never need to meet to know. Too young, perhaps, to hide her flaws, which are few, and too lovely for them to really matter. Though merely eight years old, she has the stance and strut of an eighteen year old, which scares the living bejeezus out of her father.

I don't know what makes her come to mind... something in the way the light passes through my murky window paints the mind a thousand different shades of curious. Maybe it's the thought of Spring.

Lily loves springtime. This she likely gets from her mother, as her father... more from birth than choice, loves the thought of a warm shelter in a cold climate, while her mother loves any excuse to shed her layers and, flower-like, lock lips with the midday sun. The girl runs away, though, and this is worrisome. Not away from home, not even away really, just... runs. As if the world were made of corners around which lie an even greater adventure.

And perhaps it is. I mean, in the eyes of an eight year old girl, everything has the potential for adventure. Some part of me misses that. I miss the days when there were more questions than answers... knowledge is a cruel neighbor.

Eight is a beautiful age. Long before the drama of judgmental 7th graders or the lascivious libidos of high school boys, she is this perfect innocent creature. I don't know how her father will deal with a thirteen year old Lily... I couldn't even imagine. I suppose one becomes the parent they need to be when they need to be it. Parents grow too, it would seem. I never thought about that. And Lily will have dreams of greater things, of real things. You see, when a child dreams, she dreams of fantastical things... castles and riches and handsome princes... but they don't have faces in dreams. They don't have names or addresses. But as she grows, she collects these things... she finds her real life princes and learns that princes can be villains and that castles aren't always on steady ground. And something in me already wants to shield her from such things.

I think of Lily and I wonder who she'll be when she grows into Lillian. It's amazing that we grow into anything at all, really. I'm daily inspired by the changes in people; how we think of ourselves as standing still, while the world evolves us all every minute. It's a beautiful and powerful thing, change. But for now, Lily remains changeless... or at least, unblemished by the world.

And just like that, she disappears. Nights like this, I can see her as clearly as I can see my own moonlit hands, and yet when she goes, no image remains. Just a feeling... and until I see her again, that feeling is enough to keep me wondering.

Lily is my daughter.

Maybe.

Someday.

For now, though, she's just a dream.

That's all for now.