I sensed something had changed. Something big.

It was Friday night, over dinner. You, your partner, some guests. The five of us at dinner, in the City. I sat at the head of the table, watching over the meal and conversation.

They wanted to know about your summer internship, at the SF Public Defenders office. Having just completed your 1st year, they wanted to know if the hard doses of reality had impacted your beliefs, your enthusiasm, your conviction. You took their questions, responded thoughtfully, and made space for more curiosity. I was acting as an observer, aware of my tendencies and our joint ritual of engaging in purity tests.

Those rituals started when you were seven, when we first explained what Prop 8 was about. It ignited the flame of justice in you, and setoff a running multi-decades long conversation between us. Our purity filters were often applied to “Top 5 Rappers of All Time”, and at one point your command of hip-hop history exceeded mine. While I will never concede that Jaz-Z should be on that list, this point/counter-point back and forth served as a backdrop for me watching you grow.

And grow you have.

I sensed something was different that night. Your energy was less righteous, and invited curiosity instead of opposing, reactive force. You had a softness to you that I only see when you are with your brothers, but we weren’t doing family time that night. The discussion was about the industrial prison complex, redemption, justice, and the toll this takes on people like you.

In one moment, I concluded that I had just witnessed your transformation, and that you had become “a man”. I put this in quotes because I wasn’t even sure what that fully meant. But I uttered it to myself. You were no longer a boy, or young man. You were a fully grown man.

The next morning I was still reflecting on what happened, and how I framed the transition. But something didn’t sit right. I sat with this question, and revisited my conclusion. Your younger brothers were playing and coloring nearby, so I felt your genetic energy and soul around me.

And that’s when I realized that something had in fact changed. But it wasn’t you.

It was me.

In that moment, while watching you tell your story, I finally saw you as something other than an improved iteration of me. I was present in a way I hadn’t been before, and for the first time was able to witness you without any need to trace lineage of thoughts or ideas back to myself.

I wasn’t observing a branch. I was witnessing a tree.