Thanksgiving. Covid. Colin.
November 27, 2020
My son is twenty years old.
I lost him about the time he was halfway through his sophomore year in high school. I’m not going into details here, except to say that was the point where I began to realize I could ground him, shriek, take away his phone, and nothing worked.
I made threats and he offered intense promises on the ride home from the police station. My husband and I shared nervous trips to the court house, endured discussions with parents on the courthouse steps, searches on google for an air freshener that eliminates the smell of pot, searches on google for a place for kids like him, conversations with friends that ended quickly because I didn’t know how to spin any of it.
Colin is twenty now.
There is my baby boy who wouldn’t fall asleep without plastic zoo animals, couch pillows, his favorite pot holder and a special blue blue blanket in his crib.
There is Colin of elementary school, who tried karate, loved his bunk beds, and wanted a dog more than anything.
There is Colin, the teenager. He played football, partied in the woods, set the table, had friends over on school nights and hid them in the closet, woke up for basketball practice without an alarm, asked for a waffle maker for Christmas, and was a genius at making his sister do his chores.
There is Colin, the young man on house arrest. A picture with him in the driveway was part of the senior scavenger hunt.
We fought with his probation officer to let him play basketball in the driveway, and sometimes he’d shoot hoops when the weather was nice, but mostly, he’d sit outside the back door and look at his phone.
And there is Colin now.
Tonight, I sat next to my son during dinner. It’s Thanksgiving, 2020. We were at a restaurant, and our masks were all placed in front of our silverware.
He lives five minutes away, but he took an Uber to the restaurant.
It’s been six months since we shared a meal.
I don’t know what he watches on Netflix, who he’s sleeping with, if he still eats Lucky Charms for breakfast, takes thirty minutes in the shower, and twenty minutes to dry off and drop his towels on the floor.
I don’t even know why he came to dinner.
I don’t care if Colin smells like 1969, is twenty minutes late, or wears a jacket that costs more than what I spend on groceries.
I love him more than spring, Springsteen, or the little boy he was, when it was easy. (Maybe it wasn’t easy, but looking back it seems like it was easier than now.)
If you offered me a million dollars, I couldn’t tell you Colin’s favorite color, how to make him laugh, or the first thing he remembered.
I know he is amazing, and will do amazing things. Not sure why or when, but there is such a thing as unconditional love and faith.
That is pretty big, I think.
The Things I Can’t Throw Away
November 22, 2020
Colin’s football jersey from 2017. My son is twenty now, and I don’t know him anymore. I knew him then, and he needed me to drive him places.
A potholder with a picture drawn by Katy in third grade.
A black silk bathrobe I ruined long ago in the wash that I bought during the height of my “I’m never going to get old, rainy days are for sleeping in, and I love the dressing rooms at Lord and Taylor’s!”.
A picture of my friend Cici, who died so long ago, I’m not sure that’s how she spelled her name.
A necklace my husband Sheldon bought me at some club that looks like a dog collar for a dead stuffed poodle owned by someone who misses the 80’s and his pet, and has watched everything on Netflix.
So many single earrings and broken necklaces.
Two unopened bottles of coriander. I must have seen an incredible recipe somewhere, but I must have thrown it out.
I didn’t hold onto baby clothes and wish I could find the homemade Mother’s Day cards.
I don’t know where the tickets stubs are from the last time I saw Bruce or a baby blue sweatshirt from my friend Rachael. She left it at my house, and finally gave it me when I begged, or maybe I offered her something in return. It was the right shade of worn out blue, soft, and perfect. The cotton had a tiny blood stain on the sleeve from a car accident she’d had just after she learned how to drive and faded spots from where she’d tried to wash them out with bleach.
It’s funny I don’t have any regrets about everything I’ve sent to Goodwill or tied up in big, black, bags and left at the end of the driveway.
I still have sorting to do, and it appears I will have the time to ponder what stays and goes.
I have time to consider, reminisce, and hope.
Well, not much time, actually. I just started a new job.
My daughter is a vegetarian, my husband is a diabetic, and my dog has kidney disease, so making dinner is complicated.
I like to workout in my living room, read novels so thick I can use them to make myself look better on Zoom, and it takes me forty-five minutes to walk Sophia around the block. We have a fenced in back yard, but I don’t want her to get bored.
Watching Sophie sniff the same patch of grass for four minutes, and then move on to a bush for two minutes is incredibly boring.
But anything is better than choosing what to throw away and what to keep.
Well, not anything, but you know what I mean.
Monday Night, I Have Time and Wine.
November 17, 2020
I’ve been a lot of people.
I’ve been a seven year old who wouldn’t turn on the fan in my bedroom because I didn’t want to waste power, wrote love stories about horses, and put a dead rabbit in the drawer in hopes I could bring it back to life when I was older.
I’ve been a teenager who guzzled Colt 45 in an outhouse, loved a boy and didn’t know him, and thought I was invincible- from heartbreak, time, and regret.
I’ve been a twenty something without a clue- about how to help my father die of early onset Alzheimer’s, what to be when I grew up, who to love and how to say goodbye or make it last.
My thirties were a blur. I’m not going into details, tonight, at least. I had fun, I think. I learned to swim on the days after I partied too much. I swam a lot. I spent too much money, and I cherish the people that knew me then who still love me now.
My forties brought parenthood. Against all odds, I had two kids, a son at 39 and a daughter at 43. I was not, and am not, a fan of babies and toddlers, so my favorite moments early on are dropping my child, or children, at a friends’ house for the weekend.
When they were able to have a conversation that didn’t involve a debate over macaroni and cheese or whether or not I’d continue to push them on the swings, they became interesting. They made me laugh, and still do. They are far smarter than I will ever be, kind, patient, funny, and fascinating. They are are also incredibly private about what I share, and since I’m not I’m not on SnapChat, I don’t know if it’s me or their personal brand.
I wish I’d finished college before the age of 56.
I wish I liked more about babies than the way they smell, and found my toddlers as delightful as a great book, or even a semi good thriller.
I wish I’d known I will not go on forever.
But now, it’s a pandemic, my kids are good, I have a house, a dog who thinks she’s a cat and two cats who like to nap on the kitchen table, and a husband who likes me even when I’m mean. I wake up without regrets, except for wishing I’d had a clue. I guess finding one is kind of the point of everything.
Find joy in where you’ve been, and who you are.
I do, and I’m a mess.
Pandemic Halloween
November 1, 2020
On Facebook, members of my New England community have squabbled over whether we should cancel Halloween. People posted ways to make it safe, people argued there was no way to make it safe. People with small children asked for addresses were families were giving out candy, people with large children reminded each other the numbers are climbing. More than once, parents were strongly advised to stay home with teenagers to watch Hocus Pocus while sipping juice boxes. Or bake.
Katy, my seventeen year old, doesn’t like Hocus Pocus. She has a boyfriend, and about five friends she’s spent time with since June. So I negotiated with her to host a Halloween party outside with, (I don’t want to use the word pod,) her people. They decided to dress up as characters in “Among Us,” a game they play on their phones. The characters look like spacemen, and it is free. That is all I know.
Then there was snow. Our table was broken by a run away umbrella, our backyard was as muddy as spring. We thought about cancelling because we’d have to move it indoors, and we didn’t. These kids had been inside our house a week ago making their costumes.
Rachel made caramel apples and I burned my finger tasting, just like I did forty years ago. Her mom brought mountains of naked wings so that Jared, whose allergic to dairy products, could eat them- her primary ingredient in buffalo wings is butter and I wouldn’t let her leave until she promised to make some for me next week. The kids ate wings, mountains of nachos, pizza and brownies. Jared was happy we had coconut ice cream, because naked wings alone for dinner is kind of sad.
Raphael, Katy’s boyfriend, took a nap; he’s exhausted from rowing crew, zoom, and life. They watched movies, and had meaningful conversations when they weren’t arguing over whose playlist was best, and played Cards Against Humanity.
They made Lisa and I go Abby Park for dinner, so this is what Katy told me after everyone left at ten.
We were cleaning the kitchen, and “Blue Moon Revisited” by the Cowboy Junkies came on my radio station, 92.5 The River. I told Katy to stop what she was doing, (she wasn’t doing much, mostly offering moral support,) and just listen. We stood there, while the sad voice of Margot Timmons spilled out of the radio. When melody of the original “Blue Moon” crept in, Katy sighed. I loved that album in the eighties, and I tried to make at least twenty people listen to that song. Katy, on this pandemic Halloween, might have been the first one who did. She added it to her playlist, and felt a small tear.
Afterwards, we sat in the living room, and talked- about Raphael, her friends and first kisses, the baby she’s taking care of today, the kalimba she’s learning to play, daylight savings time, and whether she misses her brother, Colin. We talked about whether I miss Colin, and to be honest, that answer is different right now than it was last night.
It was not the spookiest of Halloweens. For the most part, we were with the people we are closest to, friends who do not surprise us, but know us well and love us anyway.
This year’s Halloween was a respite from the fear of 2020. Over the next few days, the goblins and gremlins will do their work.
Please vote.
julierichmond 