My granddaugter Robin is more than three months old, and Emma sent me the latest photo today. Babies, like puppies, are a blank slate, we can project anything we wish onto them. Dogs have to live with it, but kids get to speak up and tell us we are wrong, or worse.

I do love this kids smile. She is either a Wise Old Soul, or a Hell-Raiser. If she is like her mother, she is willful, very smart, ironic,  and independent. I feel like I can talk to this smile, and respond to it.

Robin seems a bit of a rascal to me, good naturedl but full of mischief. I haven’t seen her for several weeks, and I’m not likely to see her for awhile. Technology does make it easier for me to keep up, but I think it’s too soon for her to remember me.

If I read her eyes right – they are pirate eyes, I think – then we will re-connect easily when we meet. I am contemplating a one-day run down to Brooklyn on the train sometime before Maria goes to India, but it has to fit with Emma’s schedule, which is pretty intense.

More than anything else, Robin’s smile and intense gaze are getting through to me, there is a lot of life in those eyes. People say she looks like me, God help  her, I do not see it at all.

I do wish I could be closer to her, but I am where I ought to be. This farm is my home now, the place where character and community come together for me. Family also, in many ways.

I wish to live life as simply and fully as I can, that is my wish in my work and leisure and love. It keeps me here on my farm.  I will see Robin when I can, and over time, she will reveal  herself to me, and me to her. In the meantime, smiles speak a thousand words.