Countdown!
Three days! Three days until my big boy comes home from his semester in Thailand. We cleared a path to his bed, washed the sheets, wrapped birthday and Christmas gifts, and, shoot, the "Welcome Home" banner has been up for weeks. Ready!
When he first left for college, I did not cry. I felt weepy and disoriented, a smidgen hollow, watching him wend his way through the long security line, but I was not deeply grieved. However, twelve weeks later I was tracking his return flight on the interwebs when the wee plane on the wee map abruptly made a u-turn over Milwaukee — well, I didn't cry then, either, but I had a Complete Freak-Out. Which played out quite hilariously on Facebook. "Someone go over to her house and pour that woman a drink!"
I'm fine with my boys leaving, just don't get in the way of their return. When I realized last month that he would not come home on the 15th, but that his flight left that day and arrived the 16th, I was frosted for a full several hours. Frosted, I tell you. See, I'd had it in my mind that I only had to hold out until that Saturday. No delays, please, and thank you.
My traveler has survived multiple leech attacks, ticks in the most unseemly places, and extreme crankies caused by excessive heat. No word yet on whether he's ridden an elephant. I hope he's squeezed that in, for the sake of his periodontist, who exclaimed last summer: "Oh, you must ride an elephant! I love riding elephants!" Then Dr. Su fired up his laptop to look at maps and reminisce about wonderful sights and places to visit.
Nothing here at home appears to have changed much while he's been gone. Although, back in August, my younger son started volunteering at an aero museum once a week, and seems so much older, so much happier. He's flown a 1939 Stinson Detroiter and learned to operate a Genie personnel lift and haul gravel like a manly-man. Satisfying. And me? So much has changed. I have learned that I am perfectly employable, which came as rather a surprise. I've had three job interviews. The first two were silly; evidently there are people responsible for hiring who have had no instruction on the basics of interview protocol. The last interview went quite swimmingly. I could be offered a job, like, next week. That's just crazy town. It's hard to hold that in my mind, that possibility, when I know I'll only have two short weeks with both boys under the same roof.
Back when I was in college, during a winter holiday, the family converged in Colorado Springs at my (step-) mother's home. One sunny afternoon, my grandmother and I were sent on an errand, probably, I now realize, not for the ostensibly-needed item, but because we both talk so much and the house needed some quiet. [Ahem.]
I remember exactly the stretch of road where my grandmother said to me, "If there's anything you want to know about sex, ask! Ask me anything!" I was not embarrassed or grossed out, like my cousins were when I reported this remarkable exchange. But I was most definitely taken aback.
It turned out she had some questions of her own. She was unclear about "...those things people keep talking about with this AIDS. What are they called? Con-doms. Are those the things you slip over the man's penis?" She said this with a gesture of her hand, as if, indeed, slipping something over a man's penis. Yes, grandma, they are. "Oh. We called them French specials. Horace took care of that."
At the time, I thought that the fact that she didn't know the word "condoms" pretty much meant that she wouldn't have anything to offer about sex. Because, hell, I had the mechanics down: birth control and AIDS, check and check.
When he first left for college, I did not cry. I felt weepy and disoriented, a smidgen hollow, watching him wend his way through the long security line, but I was not deeply grieved. However, twelve weeks later I was tracking his return flight on the interwebs when the wee plane on the wee map abruptly made a u-turn over Milwaukee — well, I didn't cry then, either, but I had a Complete Freak-Out. Which played out quite hilariously on Facebook. "Someone go over to her house and pour that woman a drink!"
I'm fine with my boys leaving, just don't get in the way of their return. When I realized last month that he would not come home on the 15th, but that his flight left that day and arrived the 16th, I was frosted for a full several hours. Frosted, I tell you. See, I'd had it in my mind that I only had to hold out until that Saturday. No delays, please, and thank you.
My traveler has survived multiple leech attacks, ticks in the most unseemly places, and extreme crankies caused by excessive heat. No word yet on whether he's ridden an elephant. I hope he's squeezed that in, for the sake of his periodontist, who exclaimed last summer: "Oh, you must ride an elephant! I love riding elephants!" Then Dr. Su fired up his laptop to look at maps and reminisce about wonderful sights and places to visit.
Nothing here at home appears to have changed much while he's been gone. Although, back in August, my younger son started volunteering at an aero museum once a week, and seems so much older, so much happier. He's flown a 1939 Stinson Detroiter and learned to operate a Genie personnel lift and haul gravel like a manly-man. Satisfying. And me? So much has changed. I have learned that I am perfectly employable, which came as rather a surprise. I've had three job interviews. The first two were silly; evidently there are people responsible for hiring who have had no instruction on the basics of interview protocol. The last interview went quite swimmingly. I could be offered a job, like, next week. That's just crazy town. It's hard to hold that in my mind, that possibility, when I know I'll only have two short weeks with both boys under the same roof.
* * * * *
Back when I was in college, during a winter holiday, the family converged in Colorado Springs at my (step-) mother's home. One sunny afternoon, my grandmother and I were sent on an errand, probably, I now realize, not for the ostensibly-needed item, but because we both talk so much and the house needed some quiet. [Ahem.]
I remember exactly the stretch of road where my grandmother said to me, "If there's anything you want to know about sex, ask! Ask me anything!" I was not embarrassed or grossed out, like my cousins were when I reported this remarkable exchange. But I was most definitely taken aback.
It turned out she had some questions of her own. She was unclear about "...those things people keep talking about with this AIDS. What are they called? Con-doms. Are those the things you slip over the man's penis?" She said this with a gesture of her hand, as if, indeed, slipping something over a man's penis. Yes, grandma, they are. "Oh. We called them French specials. Horace took care of that."
At the time, I thought that the fact that she didn't know the word "condoms" pretty much meant that she wouldn't have anything to offer about sex. Because, hell, I had the mechanics down: birth control and AIDS, check and check.
So naive.
I had no idea what to ask. Later, sure, I wish I'd had someone to talk to about, you know, what the hell you do with that... part. But then, no. Nothing.
In the twenty years since her death, I have thought about so very many things I would like to discuss with her. Not sex especially, but other tender, intimate things: fears, losses, delights, victories.
Last weekend on the long drive out to the aero museum on the Olympic Peninsula, on a very different stretch of road, dark and misty, I thought about my grandmother, remembered that exchange, her exuberance, her frank and open manner. I wondered for the first time about something that should have been obvious, that she was likely offering information that she herself wished she'd had as a young woman.
But mostly, as I thought about her, I wondered at her perseverance, her devotion to place. Aside from her four years at university, she lived out her entire life in Lorain, Ohio, in homes within a few blocks of each other, her parents' and the one she built with her husband — sixty years she lived in that house. Sixty.
I've been in my house twenty years. I gave birth in this house. I've educated my children here, baked hundreds of loaves of bread in my 1950 Frigidaire range, and worked tirelessly to make this a welcoming and warm home. It is nothing like my grandmother's house in appearance, but the feel is similar. Cozy.
I have, in fact, led a very home-centered life, by choice and through a strange convergence of accident and privilege. I work outside the home because I must; I do not love my job, nor do I feel any attachment or allegiance to that institution. My job has been the annoying responsibility that takes me away from my primary concerns.
[Once, as we were finishing a lesson and it was time for me to get ready to leave, I whispered to my son, "I don't want to go to work." He leaned across the table and whispered back, "Don't you want to get money?" Well. Okay. I guess we have to eat.]
My grandmother was about the age I am now when her husband died. To support her children, she took his job teaching high school math. She was a practical woman, an excellent mathematician, good at working problems. She was not prone to overthinking, like yours truly. I wonder, though, how she managed that transition, how she reinvented herself, her life, in that home, when her beloved was taken from her so suddenly, and so young.
In photos taken at that time, my grandmother looks ghastly. She had a goiter, wore old lady clothes, and appeared angry and worn. Those years, her children's teen years, didn't feature very prominently in her repertoire of stories. And, boy-howdy, did she have a repertoire.
My grandmother had constructed a narrative that she was compelled to tell and retell. I wonder about this, and wish I could talk with her about it. ("Ask me anything!") I wouldn't want to pry or call her out, but I wonder about the stories she didn't tell. My grandmother tucked away the tender parts of her story, her husband's death, and I respect that silence. In fact, I have found that silence is a kindness I can offer myself and loved or formerly-loved ones concerning some of the more painful chapters. Although there were so many stories she didn't tell, my grandmother trusted me enough to offer to discuss the exuberant and fully alive parts of her marriage. I am curious about the places where the stories rub up against the silences, where, exactly, we choose to end the story. This business of navigating the big changes, and then putting everything together, all the chapters, into a cohesive narrative -- this is the business of growing up, and to do it in an authentic way, honestly and with integrity, takes a special kind of bravery. I miss her.
So in three days my boy will be home, and we will be bake and read and talk. I will hear about his adventures, as he sorts out his travels into the Thailand Chapter. And I'm sure he will tell the "remember when" stories that we always tell each other when he is home, so we can remember who he was, who we were as a family. At some point in those two weeks he is home, I will hear whether I have an invitation to a new chapter myself. And I will cope with stories or silences as required.
But mostly, as I thought about her, I wondered at her perseverance, her devotion to place. Aside from her four years at university, she lived out her entire life in Lorain, Ohio, in homes within a few blocks of each other, her parents' and the one she built with her husband — sixty years she lived in that house. Sixty.
I've been in my house twenty years. I gave birth in this house. I've educated my children here, baked hundreds of loaves of bread in my 1950 Frigidaire range, and worked tirelessly to make this a welcoming and warm home. It is nothing like my grandmother's house in appearance, but the feel is similar. Cozy.
I have, in fact, led a very home-centered life, by choice and through a strange convergence of accident and privilege. I work outside the home because I must; I do not love my job, nor do I feel any attachment or allegiance to that institution. My job has been the annoying responsibility that takes me away from my primary concerns.
[Once, as we were finishing a lesson and it was time for me to get ready to leave, I whispered to my son, "I don't want to go to work." He leaned across the table and whispered back, "Don't you want to get money?" Well. Okay. I guess we have to eat.]
My grandmother was about the age I am now when her husband died. To support her children, she took his job teaching high school math. She was a practical woman, an excellent mathematician, good at working problems. She was not prone to overthinking, like yours truly. I wonder, though, how she managed that transition, how she reinvented herself, her life, in that home, when her beloved was taken from her so suddenly, and so young.
In photos taken at that time, my grandmother looks ghastly. She had a goiter, wore old lady clothes, and appeared angry and worn. Those years, her children's teen years, didn't feature very prominently in her repertoire of stories. And, boy-howdy, did she have a repertoire.
My grandmother had constructed a narrative that she was compelled to tell and retell. I wonder about this, and wish I could talk with her about it. ("Ask me anything!") I wouldn't want to pry or call her out, but I wonder about the stories she didn't tell. My grandmother tucked away the tender parts of her story, her husband's death, and I respect that silence. In fact, I have found that silence is a kindness I can offer myself and loved or formerly-loved ones concerning some of the more painful chapters. Although there were so many stories she didn't tell, my grandmother trusted me enough to offer to discuss the exuberant and fully alive parts of her marriage. I am curious about the places where the stories rub up against the silences, where, exactly, we choose to end the story. This business of navigating the big changes, and then putting everything together, all the chapters, into a cohesive narrative -- this is the business of growing up, and to do it in an authentic way, honestly and with integrity, takes a special kind of bravery. I miss her.
* * * * *
So in three days my boy will be home, and we will be bake and read and talk. I will hear about his adventures, as he sorts out his travels into the Thailand Chapter. And I'm sure he will tell the "remember when" stories that we always tell each other when he is home, so we can remember who he was, who we were as a family. At some point in those two weeks he is home, I will hear whether I have an invitation to a new chapter myself. And I will cope with stories or silences as required.
That's a good one. How did I miss it before?
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