His World

I'd stayed up late being silly the night before (some people dress up for Halloween and look gorgeous; I dress up and I am still, unfortunately, me, although, quite fortunately, I have my Halloween-glam friends who stand by and beguile, who also (miraculously) dance with me, even that friend who spends part of the night telling me how gorgeous all the other women are, detail by detail, he explains, they are so gorgeous, they have, he says, an aura, and that's right, these friends, they have an aura), and then I never did fall asleep. So that by the time we started driving through the endless rain to see that son I sorely miss, I was in a strange gray place, one easily pierced by the sight of cliff rock and red ivy on the dark bark of trees.

Some of the valleys were fog. Some of the valleys caught lost bits of sun, then shucked them off, before they warmed me.

When it wasn't outright pouring, we walked the campus with our son. "Hope he's able to show you a few surprises/discoveries," my friend Jay had written, and our son did more than that. He stole, with us, inside academic buildings and showed us where he sat in class. He took us upstairs to the quiet retreat where he gets his reading done. He walked us behind the campus, then out of it, and told us landmark stories. He said over and over how much he loved his school, then said, as many times, how glad he was that we had come.

What is it, I thought, what is it about him?

His happiness. His calm. His aura.

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Empty Nesting

We gave the largest room in this tiny house to our son, but it was never big enough. He was a keeper of all things, always. Favorite hats and books and every paper from every grade that reminded him of something happy. He'd stack his pennies high on top of books, and beneath the books he'd keep the magazines from years ago, and inside the magazines were notes he'd taken while watching world cup soccer.

I am a devoted minimalist, seeker of clean and open space, and I gave birth to a guy like this. In this way, he is his father's son.

But today, we attacked this room together, my son and I, and suddenly it was easy to throw things away, to move them to other places. To decide that memories don't need artifacts to contain them, or not all the time, at least. Sometimes memories just are, and the old tee-shirt can go, and so can the box of tired magazines, and all the while the room grows around you, and the sun comes in, unobstructed.

We are packed now, ready to go. Tomorrow he begins his second year at college, and I begin my second fall without him. He is a man of many friends and talents, and he has found the perfect college home. I will see him go in that full knowledge and also with the knowledge that he is that rare breed of guy who wants to know what it is that I've been writing or, even, thinking, who notices how it is when I finally tame my hair, who stops, apropos of nothing, to say, Mom, I really love you, or Mom, thank you.

Thank you. Two words.

Autumn was always my favorite season, but now, to me, it means something else.

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