It is somewhere between 72 and 80 degrees, a light breeze blowing out to sea, enough sunshine where I can see the crisp ends of every horizon in every direction. My drink… chilled as the little umbrella descends little by little, the ice in an unhurried melting. “Sunny and 72…Sunny and 72” I whisper to myself, a mantra of purposelessness. Maybe I will grab the clubs and swing at a bucket, maybe play a whole 18. Or maybe, just maybe, I will sit here and listen to the wind play me a lullaby in the fronds of creaking palm trees.

The neighbors are shuffling about. Running here and there and buying things like batteries and bottled water. They listen to the news. They hear the weather people trying to sound important using words like weather systems and tropical depressions and category 5. Me, I drink things that come pre-mixed in long glass bottles. I mean, why ruin a perfectly good day by being a reactionary and strapping lumber to your house? What a fucking waste of time, a waste of a good tee time. Or maybe, I will just sit here. No need to prepare. No need to beg and scrape for salvageable lumber to reinforce the doors and windows of my home. Fly your flags and buy your water. What do I have to be worried about?

Think I will go get the clubs and head out the municipal course for while. Or maybe, just maybe, I listen to that mellifluous wind. What a gorgeous day!

And somewhere, 200 miles and 10 days off shore, he churns and swirls over the warm open waters, gaining intensity and maturing with every twisting rotation. He will make landfall at my doorstep and nothing will ever be the same again.

This is my metaphor of pending parenthood.