Ken McAlpine's Blog: The Hesitant Blogger - Posts Tagged "love"
Find happiness where you can
Tucked within the protected confines of Nantucket Sound, Quohog Beach is a beach for young children. As if attempting to make things pleasant for its primary patrons, everything about Quohog Beach is small, from its wee crescent of sand to the pint-size jetty jutting like a blunt thumb into the Sound.
At the moment we are consumed with the beach. We scour the sand, buckets swinging, poking through a tangle of seaweed, broken bits of whelk and moon snail, searching beneath a cloudless blue July sky for pieces of horseshoe crab. These prehistoric creatures once littered Cape Cod in such numbers that they were ground up and used as fertilizer by farmers. From what we observe on the sand their numbers haven’t decreased much, though each crab appears to have been placed atop a firecracker and then scattered by a schizophrenic wind.
No matter. Our plan remains straightforward. We will piece together a horseshoe crab, whole and complete. Cullen and Graham raptly pluck cracker-thin crab bits, placing them gently in their bucket. I follow their example, but with slightly less enthusiasm. I understand the odds. I glance at other parents, flat on their backs in the hot sun.
At six, Cullen runs things. He waves a magisterial hand at his four-year-old brother.
“If we don’t get enough pieces to put together the crab now,” he decrees, “we’ll get the rest later.”
“Uh-huh,” grunts Graham, possibly because he mildly resents being bossed around, possibly because he is sorely bent to one side under the weight of a bucket spilling over with pretty much everything he could pick up.
Cullen strides over to his brother’s bucket, peers in and scowls.
“Crabs aren’t made out of beer cans!”
I wish the beer can was full. My head has been cocked to the sand for two hours. The back of my neck feels like it’s been kicked by a Clydesdale.
Perhaps I slip into sudsy daydream. Cullen looks at us both and harrumphs.
“Am I going to have to do this all by myself?”
We collect jigsaw pieces for another thirty minutes. Not thirty-one minutes, not thirty-two. Any parent of small children understands exactitude. I can’t go a minute longer. I find an excuse called lunch.
The three of us walk up the path to the cottage where we are staying for the week, buckets bumping.
“I think we have the pieces we need,” says Cullen.
“Right,” says Graham.
He is too young for sarcasm.
We march through the front door and continue, as quickly as possible, on through the kitchen, where Kathy is fixing everyone lunch. We are not quick enough.
“You’d better wash whatever that is off their hands,” says Kathy.
I stand in the bathroom, watching Cullen turn a white hand towel black. I may be less attentive the second son around. Eating lunch I notice Graham has something shiny and snail-like on his index finger. I say a silent prayer and he answers it by licking it off.
That night Kathy and I lay in bed. Our sliding screen door opens to the porch. Occasionally a puff of wind brings a smell that makes me wonder if Stephen King is cooking something just outside. Beneath the stars dark shells lay methodically sorted, according to what I don’t know.
“Phew,” I say.
“Maybe you could put them in the yard,” Kathy says, but I know she doesn’t really mean it because she’s smiling as if we’re lying downwind from a potpourri factory.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “Another six months and it’ll be a wrap.”
“Anything is possible,” my beautiful bride says to me, and I know why I married her.
The following morning we redirect slightly.
“I want to crab,” says Graham.
Cullen gives a magisterial nod.
“Let’s,” he says.
We have become fascinated with crabbing because frankly nothing, with the possible exception of King Henry VIII, eats with more gusto than crabs do. Also live crabs do more interesting things than dead ones. The small jetty pronging off Quohog Beach is loaded with crabs. We know this because on this, the fourth day of our vacation, we have already been crabbing roughly two thousand times.
We retrieve our buckets from the porch. Before we go, Cullen crouches to arrange a few promising horseshoe pieces.
“Hmmm,” he says, moving the pieces in circles like a centrifugal chess master.
“Hmmm,” says his brother, who at this juncture in time still admires him greatly.
Cullen finishes placing the bits in their proper places. There is something resembling a horseshoe crab body, but there are still great gaps occupied by cedar composite decking.
“There,” says Cullen.
What I see resembles a horse dropping after the Kentucky Derby field has run through it.
Cullen looks to Graham.
“Just a few more pieces,” he says.
“Hmmmm,” says Graham.
Small children wake well before the most conscientious rooster and even earlier on vacation. The world is gray. The light isn’t even up yet. The air is still damp with sea. The beach is empty.
We each carry our own bucket, chicken bits and string inside. I step gingerly along the jetty. The enormous rocks, sectioned in some distant quarry, are liberally colonized by barnacles that jab at the soles of my feet.
Cullen and Graham walk as if strolling across shag carpet. When I reach the end of the jetty Cullen is already crouched, peering into his chosen crevice.
“Breakfast time,” says Cullen, “but not for us.”
Graham is flat on his stomach, his face and the majority of his torso in his crevice of choice.
“What do you see?” I ask.
“I dropped my string.”
After I retrieve it, I tie a chicken piece to each string. The boys accept their strings, solemnly lowering the sacrificial chicken into the dark rift. I spread out the newspaper I brought, and put the remaining chicken pieces on it. Past experience has shown us we’ll quickly need room in our buckets for crabs.
When I finish I squat and watch our sons. They peer into the dark, brows furrowed.
“Come awwwwwwwn,” says Cullen.
Graham’s string jerks.
“Whaaaaaat!” he shrieks. “Caught one! Caught one!”
I have coached them thoroughly in the craft of crabbing. Wait for the crab to latch firmly to the chicken. Bring the string up slowly so the crab doesn’t know it’s being reeled in.
Graham stands straight up. The crab swings to and fro in front of his belly button, a dark pendulum oblivious to its change in circumstance. One claw affixed to the chicken bit, the other claw greedily spoons meat into its wet maw.
Reaching behind the crab, I pinch its body between my thumb and forefinger and pry it, with considerable force, from the now shredded chicken wing. I put it in Graham’s bucket where it makes a mad scrabbling.
“I was careful,” says Graham proudly.
Cullen pretends to ignore all this. His string is limp.
“I caught a crab,” says Graham, who is not yet schooled in subterfuge either.
“You pick up beer cans,” says Cullen.
Just when I start believing that the crabs in Cullen’s crevice have evolved into something wiser, they start leaping at his string as if they’ve suddenly realized they’re aboard the Titanic. They rise from their dark places furiously stuffing down chicken bits, exhibiting not a whiff of self-preservation.
There’s always opportunity for imparting parental wisdom.
“Crabs are called crustaceans,” I say. “Even though their shells are hard, you still need to be really careful. If you break off their claws they won’t be able to eat.”
“If their claw breaks off, a new one grows on,” says Cullen.
“It does?”
“I dropped my string,” says Graham.
The crabs now pour from the jetty like a locust horde, striking wantonly at the chicken bits and each other with harsh clicks. There is a parable here, the downfall wrought by selfishness and greed, but the boys are too young for that. Crabs are also distantly related to insects, but I keep this to myself too because I’m afraid Cullen will correct me.
In short order all three buckets are brimming with clacking crabs.
“We need to empty the buckets,” I say.
“I’ll do it,” says Cullen.
“Pour them out in the water,” I tell him. “You don’t want them cracking their shells on the rocks. You’ll have to lean out a little. Take one bucket at a time, and be careful.”
Perhaps I should be reported to Childhood Protective Services, but the water here is only a few feet deep and I want our boys to stretch.
Cullen inches carefully down the side of the jetty feet first, crab-like himself. When they are young, they follow your directions to the letter. He settles easily on a broad rock washed with a thin skein of surge. The spilling crabs make a sound like a fistful of rocks flung into the water.
I know what to look for next. I grab Graham before he can slide down.
“Your job is to get the buckets when Cullen passes them up,” I say.
His solemn nod assures me this is responsibility enough. But something in his eyes tells me he’s solemn for a different reason.
He looks toward the beach.
“We’re not going to find enough horseshoe crab pieces,” he says.
“We might,” I say.
“Maybe not,” he says.
I want them to believe anything is possible, but I want them to prepare for disappointment too.
“We might not find enough pieces,” I say and I feel something stick in my throat.
We return to crabbing. Cullen stays where he is, but Graham wordlessly moves close to me, sharing my crevice. It is quiet. I hear his small breaths. I feel the butterfly press of his hand on my thigh.
The sun breaks through the dawn clouds, striking the water in three gauzy silver shafts. Together we breathe.
Sometimes life’s pieces fit together in ways you don’t expect.
At the moment we are consumed with the beach. We scour the sand, buckets swinging, poking through a tangle of seaweed, broken bits of whelk and moon snail, searching beneath a cloudless blue July sky for pieces of horseshoe crab. These prehistoric creatures once littered Cape Cod in such numbers that they were ground up and used as fertilizer by farmers. From what we observe on the sand their numbers haven’t decreased much, though each crab appears to have been placed atop a firecracker and then scattered by a schizophrenic wind.
No matter. Our plan remains straightforward. We will piece together a horseshoe crab, whole and complete. Cullen and Graham raptly pluck cracker-thin crab bits, placing them gently in their bucket. I follow their example, but with slightly less enthusiasm. I understand the odds. I glance at other parents, flat on their backs in the hot sun.
At six, Cullen runs things. He waves a magisterial hand at his four-year-old brother.
“If we don’t get enough pieces to put together the crab now,” he decrees, “we’ll get the rest later.”
“Uh-huh,” grunts Graham, possibly because he mildly resents being bossed around, possibly because he is sorely bent to one side under the weight of a bucket spilling over with pretty much everything he could pick up.
Cullen strides over to his brother’s bucket, peers in and scowls.
“Crabs aren’t made out of beer cans!”
I wish the beer can was full. My head has been cocked to the sand for two hours. The back of my neck feels like it’s been kicked by a Clydesdale.
Perhaps I slip into sudsy daydream. Cullen looks at us both and harrumphs.
“Am I going to have to do this all by myself?”
We collect jigsaw pieces for another thirty minutes. Not thirty-one minutes, not thirty-two. Any parent of small children understands exactitude. I can’t go a minute longer. I find an excuse called lunch.
The three of us walk up the path to the cottage where we are staying for the week, buckets bumping.
“I think we have the pieces we need,” says Cullen.
“Right,” says Graham.
He is too young for sarcasm.
We march through the front door and continue, as quickly as possible, on through the kitchen, where Kathy is fixing everyone lunch. We are not quick enough.
“You’d better wash whatever that is off their hands,” says Kathy.
I stand in the bathroom, watching Cullen turn a white hand towel black. I may be less attentive the second son around. Eating lunch I notice Graham has something shiny and snail-like on his index finger. I say a silent prayer and he answers it by licking it off.
That night Kathy and I lay in bed. Our sliding screen door opens to the porch. Occasionally a puff of wind brings a smell that makes me wonder if Stephen King is cooking something just outside. Beneath the stars dark shells lay methodically sorted, according to what I don’t know.
“Phew,” I say.
“Maybe you could put them in the yard,” Kathy says, but I know she doesn’t really mean it because she’s smiling as if we’re lying downwind from a potpourri factory.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “Another six months and it’ll be a wrap.”
“Anything is possible,” my beautiful bride says to me, and I know why I married her.
The following morning we redirect slightly.
“I want to crab,” says Graham.
Cullen gives a magisterial nod.
“Let’s,” he says.
We have become fascinated with crabbing because frankly nothing, with the possible exception of King Henry VIII, eats with more gusto than crabs do. Also live crabs do more interesting things than dead ones. The small jetty pronging off Quohog Beach is loaded with crabs. We know this because on this, the fourth day of our vacation, we have already been crabbing roughly two thousand times.
We retrieve our buckets from the porch. Before we go, Cullen crouches to arrange a few promising horseshoe pieces.
“Hmmm,” he says, moving the pieces in circles like a centrifugal chess master.
“Hmmm,” says his brother, who at this juncture in time still admires him greatly.
Cullen finishes placing the bits in their proper places. There is something resembling a horseshoe crab body, but there are still great gaps occupied by cedar composite decking.
“There,” says Cullen.
What I see resembles a horse dropping after the Kentucky Derby field has run through it.
Cullen looks to Graham.
“Just a few more pieces,” he says.
“Hmmmm,” says Graham.
Small children wake well before the most conscientious rooster and even earlier on vacation. The world is gray. The light isn’t even up yet. The air is still damp with sea. The beach is empty.
We each carry our own bucket, chicken bits and string inside. I step gingerly along the jetty. The enormous rocks, sectioned in some distant quarry, are liberally colonized by barnacles that jab at the soles of my feet.
Cullen and Graham walk as if strolling across shag carpet. When I reach the end of the jetty Cullen is already crouched, peering into his chosen crevice.
“Breakfast time,” says Cullen, “but not for us.”
Graham is flat on his stomach, his face and the majority of his torso in his crevice of choice.
“What do you see?” I ask.
“I dropped my string.”
After I retrieve it, I tie a chicken piece to each string. The boys accept their strings, solemnly lowering the sacrificial chicken into the dark rift. I spread out the newspaper I brought, and put the remaining chicken pieces on it. Past experience has shown us we’ll quickly need room in our buckets for crabs.
When I finish I squat and watch our sons. They peer into the dark, brows furrowed.
“Come awwwwwwwn,” says Cullen.
Graham’s string jerks.
“Whaaaaaat!” he shrieks. “Caught one! Caught one!”
I have coached them thoroughly in the craft of crabbing. Wait for the crab to latch firmly to the chicken. Bring the string up slowly so the crab doesn’t know it’s being reeled in.
Graham stands straight up. The crab swings to and fro in front of his belly button, a dark pendulum oblivious to its change in circumstance. One claw affixed to the chicken bit, the other claw greedily spoons meat into its wet maw.
Reaching behind the crab, I pinch its body between my thumb and forefinger and pry it, with considerable force, from the now shredded chicken wing. I put it in Graham’s bucket where it makes a mad scrabbling.
“I was careful,” says Graham proudly.
Cullen pretends to ignore all this. His string is limp.
“I caught a crab,” says Graham, who is not yet schooled in subterfuge either.
“You pick up beer cans,” says Cullen.
Just when I start believing that the crabs in Cullen’s crevice have evolved into something wiser, they start leaping at his string as if they’ve suddenly realized they’re aboard the Titanic. They rise from their dark places furiously stuffing down chicken bits, exhibiting not a whiff of self-preservation.
There’s always opportunity for imparting parental wisdom.
“Crabs are called crustaceans,” I say. “Even though their shells are hard, you still need to be really careful. If you break off their claws they won’t be able to eat.”
“If their claw breaks off, a new one grows on,” says Cullen.
“It does?”
“I dropped my string,” says Graham.
The crabs now pour from the jetty like a locust horde, striking wantonly at the chicken bits and each other with harsh clicks. There is a parable here, the downfall wrought by selfishness and greed, but the boys are too young for that. Crabs are also distantly related to insects, but I keep this to myself too because I’m afraid Cullen will correct me.
In short order all three buckets are brimming with clacking crabs.
“We need to empty the buckets,” I say.
“I’ll do it,” says Cullen.
“Pour them out in the water,” I tell him. “You don’t want them cracking their shells on the rocks. You’ll have to lean out a little. Take one bucket at a time, and be careful.”
Perhaps I should be reported to Childhood Protective Services, but the water here is only a few feet deep and I want our boys to stretch.
Cullen inches carefully down the side of the jetty feet first, crab-like himself. When they are young, they follow your directions to the letter. He settles easily on a broad rock washed with a thin skein of surge. The spilling crabs make a sound like a fistful of rocks flung into the water.
I know what to look for next. I grab Graham before he can slide down.
“Your job is to get the buckets when Cullen passes them up,” I say.
His solemn nod assures me this is responsibility enough. But something in his eyes tells me he’s solemn for a different reason.
He looks toward the beach.
“We’re not going to find enough horseshoe crab pieces,” he says.
“We might,” I say.
“Maybe not,” he says.
I want them to believe anything is possible, but I want them to prepare for disappointment too.
“We might not find enough pieces,” I say and I feel something stick in my throat.
We return to crabbing. Cullen stays where he is, but Graham wordlessly moves close to me, sharing my crevice. It is quiet. I hear his small breaths. I feel the butterfly press of his hand on my thigh.
The sun breaks through the dawn clouds, striking the water in three gauzy silver shafts. Together we breathe.
Sometimes life’s pieces fit together in ways you don’t expect.
An affirmation of life and love...
Dear Readers:
I just turned in the line edit for my newest novel, "The Lost Years", which is scheduled for release this fall. I'm really excited about "The Lost Years", which I believe is, at its core, an affirmation of life and love. Here's the synopsis....
Pogue Whithouse is an ordinary, extraordinary man, his rich, but troubled, life spanning surging river rides on the backs of sea turtles, the death of a heroic brother, the corpse-bloated caves of World War II Peleliu and love gone right and wrong. Eighty-five and facing his own horizon, he takes a final trip in search of his country and himself, his shaky will inspired by a creature as old as the dinosaurs and as persistent as time. Encountering a cast of characters – a herpetological hermit, a white supremacist gang, a shy librarian, a woman who rescues starving horses and, most important, a small girl who loves bullfrogs and baseball – he learns to see again the infinite possibilities in an impossibly varied world. Pogue’s story is one of life-altering love and loss, of terrible mistakes, and the possibility of redemption at any age. The pain we suffer is not in things beyond us. The pain is in realizing, too late, that these things were not beyond us at all.
I hope that intrigues you. I worked really hard to write what I hope is a beautiful story.
If you'd like to read an excerpt, please go to http://www.kenmcalpine.com/the_lost_y...
If you'd like to weigh in with your thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
Your lucky writer, Ken
I just turned in the line edit for my newest novel, "The Lost Years", which is scheduled for release this fall. I'm really excited about "The Lost Years", which I believe is, at its core, an affirmation of life and love. Here's the synopsis....
Pogue Whithouse is an ordinary, extraordinary man, his rich, but troubled, life spanning surging river rides on the backs of sea turtles, the death of a heroic brother, the corpse-bloated caves of World War II Peleliu and love gone right and wrong. Eighty-five and facing his own horizon, he takes a final trip in search of his country and himself, his shaky will inspired by a creature as old as the dinosaurs and as persistent as time. Encountering a cast of characters – a herpetological hermit, a white supremacist gang, a shy librarian, a woman who rescues starving horses and, most important, a small girl who loves bullfrogs and baseball – he learns to see again the infinite possibilities in an impossibly varied world. Pogue’s story is one of life-altering love and loss, of terrible mistakes, and the possibility of redemption at any age. The pain we suffer is not in things beyond us. The pain is in realizing, too late, that these things were not beyond us at all.
I hope that intrigues you. I worked really hard to write what I hope is a beautiful story.
If you'd like to read an excerpt, please go to http://www.kenmcalpine.com/the_lost_y...
If you'd like to weigh in with your thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
Your lucky writer, Ken
Handprints No Longer Small
Hi Wonderful Readers:
I write a weekly column out here in Southern California (kcet.org/westiseden). With kids growing up and graduation on the doorstoop, I wrote this column -- perhaps something any parent could have written.
HANDPRINTS NO LONGER SMALL
In these graduating times, cause for celebration and remembering: smeary handprints won't forever stay messy or small.
We are driving to preschool. Puffy white clouds roll about in a Southern California sky. He is two weeks into his first year at preschool.
"Oh man," he says. "I want to go to preschool forever."
Today is his last day of preschool. We hold hands briefly before he breaks away to do a little spinning dance. When he finishes, he regards me.
"Do you know why I like preschool, Dad?"
I can think of countless answers, but I know he already has one.
"Why?"
"Because they don't make me take a nap."
Today is his first day of kindergarten. Before going off to her teaching job, his lovely mother has picked out a handsome outfit and packed a yummy lunch. She's also taped a sweet note and a Dennis the Menace cartoon to his Winnie the Pooh backpack. In the cartoon Dennis is on the swings at the playground. Leaning over his shoulder he says to another boy, I just play part-time. My real job is going to kindergarten.
When I wake him, he looks bigger.
"Are you getting bigger?" I ask. "I told you not to get bigger."
He hops out of bed.
"I forgot," he says.
He is in second grade. Sometimes we still walk to school holding hands, but more often he is very busy bending to examine curious items and pocket pretty much all of them so that we may find them in the washing machine later.
We are not holding hands when he regards me somberly.
"Dad? Can I go to a close college so I can stay with you guys?"
Today is his last day of elementary school. They hold a Maypole dance; everyone performing an intricate over and under dance of ribbons and laughter that was impossible five years ago. I walk home with a neighbor whose daughter was also part of the Maypole graduation. This neighbor, he is always joking. Today he is not joking. Today he looks at me and says, "You know how you never think about things ending? But it all comes to an end. There's a last time they'll ride on your knee but you don't know it then. A lot of things happen like that."
Today is the first day of middle school. During middle school he has decided he will bike to school with his friends, but on the first day I drive him. We pass his elementary school on the way. In the gauzy early morning sunshine kids play on the playground.
He is silent for a moment and then he says, "Look at all the little kids."
As we near the middle school the sidewalks are packed with students. Some of the girls don't look like middle schoolers at all. He is sitting in the backseat. When I glance in the rear view mirror he is bug-eyed.
Today is the first day of high school. When I drop him off at school he looks back for only the required second. I work at home, my office walls plastered with mementos. Very unprofessional, but they are far more important to me than work. On this day when I get home a small handprint outlined with a few messily glued seashells catches my eye. Beneath the hand print is a poem many parents know. It speaks of frustration and smeared handprints on the furniture and walls and fingers that won't stay either messy or small. The words of the poem are fading away.
I stand there far longer than I should.
In thirty eight school days he graduates. Not that any high school senior -- here in Ventura or across the country -- is counting. Last night while he was upstairs in the shower his beautiful mother turned to me. Her hands were shaking just a little. I knew this because she was holding a plate and I was trying to figure if I would have time to snatch it out of the air.
"Remember how he always liked to be held?" she asked. "I miss that closeness."
We both smiled half smiles.
Today at school he heard from the college he wants to go to. Regarding phone conversations or texts, he does not prattle on. Between classes he sent a text.
I got in.
The college is close to us, but we know he will not be staying with us.
I write a weekly column out here in Southern California (kcet.org/westiseden). With kids growing up and graduation on the doorstoop, I wrote this column -- perhaps something any parent could have written.
HANDPRINTS NO LONGER SMALL
In these graduating times, cause for celebration and remembering: smeary handprints won't forever stay messy or small.
We are driving to preschool. Puffy white clouds roll about in a Southern California sky. He is two weeks into his first year at preschool.
"Oh man," he says. "I want to go to preschool forever."
Today is his last day of preschool. We hold hands briefly before he breaks away to do a little spinning dance. When he finishes, he regards me.
"Do you know why I like preschool, Dad?"
I can think of countless answers, but I know he already has one.
"Why?"
"Because they don't make me take a nap."
Today is his first day of kindergarten. Before going off to her teaching job, his lovely mother has picked out a handsome outfit and packed a yummy lunch. She's also taped a sweet note and a Dennis the Menace cartoon to his Winnie the Pooh backpack. In the cartoon Dennis is on the swings at the playground. Leaning over his shoulder he says to another boy, I just play part-time. My real job is going to kindergarten.
When I wake him, he looks bigger.
"Are you getting bigger?" I ask. "I told you not to get bigger."
He hops out of bed.
"I forgot," he says.
He is in second grade. Sometimes we still walk to school holding hands, but more often he is very busy bending to examine curious items and pocket pretty much all of them so that we may find them in the washing machine later.
We are not holding hands when he regards me somberly.
"Dad? Can I go to a close college so I can stay with you guys?"
Today is his last day of elementary school. They hold a Maypole dance; everyone performing an intricate over and under dance of ribbons and laughter that was impossible five years ago. I walk home with a neighbor whose daughter was also part of the Maypole graduation. This neighbor, he is always joking. Today he is not joking. Today he looks at me and says, "You know how you never think about things ending? But it all comes to an end. There's a last time they'll ride on your knee but you don't know it then. A lot of things happen like that."
Today is the first day of middle school. During middle school he has decided he will bike to school with his friends, but on the first day I drive him. We pass his elementary school on the way. In the gauzy early morning sunshine kids play on the playground.
He is silent for a moment and then he says, "Look at all the little kids."
As we near the middle school the sidewalks are packed with students. Some of the girls don't look like middle schoolers at all. He is sitting in the backseat. When I glance in the rear view mirror he is bug-eyed.
Today is the first day of high school. When I drop him off at school he looks back for only the required second. I work at home, my office walls plastered with mementos. Very unprofessional, but they are far more important to me than work. On this day when I get home a small handprint outlined with a few messily glued seashells catches my eye. Beneath the hand print is a poem many parents know. It speaks of frustration and smeared handprints on the furniture and walls and fingers that won't stay either messy or small. The words of the poem are fading away.
I stand there far longer than I should.
In thirty eight school days he graduates. Not that any high school senior -- here in Ventura or across the country -- is counting. Last night while he was upstairs in the shower his beautiful mother turned to me. Her hands were shaking just a little. I knew this because she was holding a plate and I was trying to figure if I would have time to snatch it out of the air.
"Remember how he always liked to be held?" she asked. "I miss that closeness."
We both smiled half smiles.
Today at school he heard from the college he wants to go to. Regarding phone conversations or texts, he does not prattle on. Between classes he sent a text.
I got in.
The college is close to us, but we know he will not be staying with us.
