Signs of maturing (flash post)

I've been watching these pumpkins grow for ten years now. My perception grows more specific with time. The first year, 2004, I would notice things after the fact. Oh, the plant has shot a vine along the fence toward the house. Oh, the leaves are all wilted from the heat. Oh, the blossoms are a lovely shade of orange-yellow. Oh, there's a globe shape with watermelon skin resting on the grass.

Now I peer at the plants the way we watch infants for their every change of expression. Here's what I can see today.

"?" remains the frontrunner by a considerable lead.
The long vine has begun to shift from upward growth and will soon rest
on the dirt. The plant means business once it starts sending out
the curling tendrils that will help it grab on.

"?" in close-up. Thin stalks and tight buds show the lanky male flowers
preparing to bloom later. The female flowers have yet to emerge
out at the end of the growing vine. The first two round-edged leaves
from the sprouting seed have begun to dry and drop off the plant.

2011 getting situated.

2012 the runner-up, size-wise, but it still has those first two rounded leaves.

2004 (a) making progress.

2004 (b) growing roots for sure.

Maturation is on my mind. I see that in my poetry fragment about Simon reaching an imagined maturity. I see it when I think of the cousins Simon's age, leaving high school or entering senior year in the fall, as Simon would have been set to do. With amazement I see that I've repeated a pattern in my teaching life. In Salt Lake City, I began teaching middle school (5th-8th graders) a year after Simon died. I thought the children, being much older than Simon, would not remind me painfully of him. The years went by, and soon I was teaching his own age group. I had a group of 7th grade mentees, all born around 1997, like Simon. Now, I teach college students. Most of the students enter straight from high school. In the fall of 2015, the entering class will be young adults the same age that Simon would be.