Tag: high school senior

Storm of the Eye

Posted in An Ongoing Journal...2 Comments

Today my son is a high school graduate, and I am free.

One year ago today I injured my eye, and I have found myself a prisoner of that event ever since. Today, standing in the bright morning sunshine of a fine spring day (floaters still clouding my vision and an ever-present feeling of a foreign object still being in my eye), I find myself wavering between elation and terror at the future ahead. What will describe this new chapter? My opportunity or my injury?

I cannot convey the depth and breadth of our experiences over the past year, for they have been many and mighty. And today, as I sit in a house filled to the brim with the mess of one final week of tumult and year’s end chaos, I panic slightly at the idea that nothing will right itself on its own. All of it rests on me. I realize that my son and I have just concluded, and very successfully so, this era in our lives, so I should take heart. I just need to do this one final time. In the future there will be no such messes, no such disorder. All I have to do is muster the fortitude to do this once more. Somehow, however, this doesn’t seem to make it any easier. This time I don’t know where or how to begin. And so I nibble on the leftovers from last night’s graduation dinner, I pick at the frosting from the cake, I take a sip of the last dregs of a can of Mike’s hard lemonade I found in the door of the fridge. I feed the chickens, refill the suet, make the coffee. I begin a new post. I look over my Facebook feed. I stall.

Inside, the house is a riot of unwashed dishes, half-cut onions, piles of unopened mail, schoolwork and artwork and piles of musical charts to be filed, dirty clothes in heaps in nearly every room, and pair upon pair of muddy shoes, too (how do two people amass such a mess?). Clean laundry that languished too long before I could dry it (and now smells slightly funky) confuses the system in my mudroom and will force me to start the whole shebang all over again. The lawn is knee-high and rife with land mines of fallen branches and rocks that must first be found and marked before the grass can be cut. (And this is five open acres, no small task) The coop looks like a right proper hillbilly homestead with traps set, both humane and lethal, retired kiddie pools, garden tools, a few pumps and pond paraphernalia, a wheel barrow full of plastic junk and two metal grain bins, knocked on their side by the white whale of raccoons (who evades me still), their contents now fermenting and turning rank in the wake of recent rains. All a girl can say is oy.

This day is further loaded, as I think on it. Funny how June 12th used to mean different things in different chapters in my life. In my married years, it was my parents-in-laws’ wedding anniversary. Many years later it became known as the birthday of my former husband’s out of wedlock child, the day that changed everything for Elihu and me. The day that launched us on our voyage here at the Hillhouse. For years I was conflicted about the day: should I curse it or thank it? I certainly cannot curse any child, for his birth is not his own choice. But you can understand that it was a shocking time for me, all those years ago, and were it not for the miraculous way in which our lives turned out, I might still be nursing my wounds over it. I can’t say that June 12th doesn’t bring a bit of reflection. I have never before felt such acute emotional pain as I did on this day, thirteen years ago.

And now, the date has yet another meaning. Another change of plans that I must somehow accept. An injury that I must see as a catalyst to a yet unseen future that awaits, one that otherwise would not have been possible. Thinking back over the past year, I realize that I sought out new experiences as a means of distraction from my discomfort, and I can clearly see what the injury has offered thus far: my first forays into relationships with men since my divorce, a new awareness of physical health and fitness, a bad outcome with a relationship which offered an opportunity for me to step into a better sense of self-worth (the caveat here is that this is, sadly, still a work in progress), and lastly, a host of music performance videos and the small victories that I achieved as I learned how to organize and present myself in a new format. Overall, it’s been a good year. Every time I started to sink into self-pity, I used a new goal to pull myself up and out. Yeah, for the most part it’s worked. Mostly.

As friends and regular readers will know, I tend to indulge in excessive amounts food and alcohol to take the edge off when the shit just feels relentless. But somehow I managed to pull up and out of the habit last summer. I began to see an opening, a time when life would be mine again, and so I wanted to prepare myself, to lean in… I wanted to forget this troublesome eye injury and set my sights on the future… While I did get leaner and became increasingly dedicated to my physical improvement (and really came to look forward to my workouts), I suffered a bad muscle injury, and within weeks of a diminished routine, I fell off the fitness wagon entirely. This in turn had me newly depressed and brought along with it a resurgence of daily episodes with panic attacks. I kept up with the challenges as they arrived, but it was a struggle.

Added to the frenetic pace of Elihu’s final year and all that went on with me personally, stress began to mount… I lost a good portion of my hair inside of a few weeks in late winter (whether due to stress or changing hormones, it’s an alarming experience to say the least), the arthritis in my hands became significantly more advanced in a short amount of time (my doc said it was one of the worst cases of OA he’d ever seen in the hands of someone my age), and I saw a dear friend through a year of health problems which ended in her death two weeks ago. It’s definitely been a trying chapter. So naturally I fell back on the self-soothing mechanisms that I always have. The pendulum began to swing back, and I just let it. Knowing that I was creating a situation that would have consequences down the road, I continued on anyway, savoring the hell out of those carbs which I’d fastidiously ignored since last summer. Watching as one glass of wine with dinner easily turned into a whole bottle. I jumped into the pool, right into the deep end. And so here I am today, treading water, wondering how I’m gonna make it out again. I know I will, but the side of the pool still looks to be a long way off.

Things ebb and flow, and today I’ll just have to take it easy on myself. This day has become a strange landmark in my life, and I should pause to take stock: what does June 12th mean this time around? Might I look at it perhaps as a day of hope? Today is the first day I’m not the full-time mother of a high school student. The first day in which I have nowhere to be, no one to answer to (let’s forget for the moment about the some two thousand emails and two full voicemail accounts which must be gone through on Monday). Today I’m not waiting for the other shoe to drop, it already has. It’s what happens after that which intrigues me, and keeps me from giving up and crying into my hands. How can I give up? My son is about to launch himself into the world – a prospect which is nearly as thrilling for me as it is for him. I have my book to look forward to (yes, friends, I am going to set about the task of editing and formatting content from this blog for a publish-on-demand book) and there is the business of getting healthy and fit again. Lots to do, lots to do.

Once I can get this house in order again, I’ll begin to figure out what this new game’s gonna look like. If I can just hold on to that feeling of hope again, if I can just remember that out of chaos comes order, that a catalyst is necessary for growth, that growth, change and evolution are what this whole silly planet is about…

If I can just get myself there again, it’ll be a perfect storm of possibility, and I’ll be right in the eye of it.

The Varieties of 57

Posted in An Ongoing Journal...3 Comments

This past year has been full of extremes, both good and bad. Covid played its part, but there was so much more. And I understand more profoundly today, even as I didn’t just a few months ago, that there will be no letup anytime soon; this life of mine will continue to be a challenging go-round on the globe.

I lost a couple of friends to the virus, and that still feels incredibly surreal. The death of my town’s music store owner still feels like a bad dream from which I’ll awake before long. He had been a treasured friend ever since I moved here from Chicago almost thirteen years ago – and he championed all I endeavored to do at the Studio. He sponsored all of my shows, he lent me gear, offered ideas for programs and strategies to grow the business. We passed hours chatting in the store, talking about everything from music to relationships to parenting. I drive by his place every morning and still blow him a kiss, imagining him downstairs, behind the counter, ready to greet everyone who enters like an old friend… It’s strange how we humans eventually acquiesce to the most unthinkable outcomes. Slowly, it seems I’m growing to realize that he is gone. His death reminds me that life as we knew it is also gone.

This week – this moment, in fact – I am beset with an anxiety that is deeper and more complex than any I’ve yet known. Firstly contributing there are the mundane matters of aging (about which I shall dish shortly), and secondly there is the physiological aspect of my condition which is separate and apart from that. The panic and anxiety is its own thing, I can assure you. (Tonight it is acute, and writing is helping to distract and alleviate the symptoms. At the moment I am struggling to feel ‘in my body’; part of my personal experience with panic is a frightening lightness and separation from my corporeal form which is truly terrifying, and while I have developed some tricks to mitigate it, at the end of the day old-fashioned distraction works best). I am experiencing both concerns at the same time these days, so teasing out which portion of my discomfort is age-dependent and which is involved with panic and depression is not truly possible.

I wish I could tell myself that things will get better, but honestly friends, has not the hill been surmounted? At the age of fifty-seven – and add one more year to the tally on May 7th – is my life not all on the downslope from here on in? From where I sit right now, that appears to be the clear and honest truth. I look at my mother – whose badly deformed hands I have inherited, and whose U-curved spine I’m yet hoping to avoid – and I can’t help but wish it ends long before that becomes my reality. She tosses off passive-aggressive asides under her breath about wishing to ‘shuffle off this mortal coil’ as she struggles to make her way around the kitchen, holding on to the counters like a rock climber. She never comes out and says it directly though; her generation doesn’t do that sort of thing. That I’ve actually heard her expressing feelings aloud is rather unusual, and it further supports my claim that such an aged state of infirmity is no desirable place to be. Yet even as I continue to age, I wonder if there might still be some tiny thrills ahead, despite the changes already underway – perhaps even major insights that might yet enrich my life… I hang on to some hope for all of that, and I’ll certainly put in the effort to that end – but I’m not holding my breath. And please friends, don’t protest. Honestly. The way I feel these days, I’m pretty sure the majority of my life’s sweet spots are behind me now.

It hardly seems I have any right to be in such a condition… Do I not live a fairly rarified life here on this planet? Am I not at the very top of the existential pyramid? Have I not a list of projects I’m eager to do? Do I not have a beautiful home full of beautiful things? Have I not a son who is happy, successful and who loves me? Yes, I have all of these things. But it’s the things that can’t be properly explained, seen or quantified which really do throw a spanner in the works. It’s nothing new, of course; the mental health stuff has been with me, albeit just under the surface, since I was a teenager. I’m great at presenting to the world like everything’s working fine – and in fact, I’m a super-high functioning human being, no false modesty about that here. But no matter how I may appear, my depression and panic are real, and they can make certain patches exceptionally rough for no apparent reason. And the past month or so has been just such a patch.

My state of mind is subject to a few different influences, and I’m fairly sure I know what most of them are. The constant financial stress I live with definitely contributes (my income arrives in $40 doses through a handful of ‘side hustles’. That term taunts me, as there’s nothing ‘side’ about it; it’s my only income. But I agree, I sure do hustle for it). Some of my concerns come of vanity. Some are born of self-pity. Some are related to the despondency I feel over the neglect I show to many old friends with whom I just can’t seem to find the time to communicate. I shouldn’t wish to be forgotten by my friends, but I myself am doing just that with so many people. There are half a dozen folks whom I owe a nice long conversation, and many more who deserve a good catching-up via email, but I’m always just too beat at the end of the day to make any of it happen. And that makes me feel crappy.

There’s also the eye injury. It’s a 24/7 affair. It physically bothers me almost every moment of day of every day. In order to distract myself I learn music. I make videos. I do chores. I walk in nature, I take care of my chickens and my home, I cook for my son, I do errands for homebound friends and caretake for a few elderly neighbors. I do, do, do… The panic and depression which has returned is likely also due in part to the chaotic, frenetic nature of my average day.

The episodes come in waves though, and they’re not always perceptible to me. One morning, a few months ago, I came to the breakfast table feeling deliriously free of that low-grade shitty feeling that cloaks me most of my waking hours – and it felt simply wonderful. The sheer absence of feeling bad was itself so good! When I told Elihu that, he simply responded “Manic much?”. Hm. “Really, is it that bad?” I asked. He told me it was, and reminded me that I’d felt good last week, and that I’d be feeling really bad again soon. I was truly surprised. In that moment I couldn’t remember having felt this kind of relief in ages. “Wait, really? I felt like this just last week?” He told me that he was pretty sure I had. I don’t have much interaction with people save what I carefully select for social media, so who else but Elihu would know? I guess I’ll have to believe him. From where I sit tonight, I pray he’s right. If I’m feeling this bad right now, relief’s gotta come soon, right? Sleep doesn’t even help; I sleep so very little – three, maybe four hours a night – and often wake up mid-way in terror. It’s pretty brutal these days.

And there are all of the physical landmarks which I am fast-reaching (I suppose you could file these under both self-pity and vanity too). A musician whose arthritic fingers have doubled in size in less than a year? A hand that can no longer grasp the wheel of my car before I’m sixty? Dang. Then there is the lost jawline, the strange crinkly texture of my skin in areas of my body that I was sure had a longer life expectancy than this… An alarming loss of word recall, a new stiffness in my hips and hair that has thinned dramatically. What the actual fuck? I thought this shit would hit home in my mid sixties, certainly not before… I put in my time raising my son, turning down dates and saving myself for that sweet spot post-child when I could pick up where I left off, maybe even really enjoy myself a little before things went downhill. And things were looking pretty OK not too long ago; I’d lost seventeen pounds and was working out six days a week – I was feeling and looking good just a couple months ago until I injured myself and then absolutely tanked. I suppose the depression has built up since I fell off the fitness wagon – and I can say most assuredly that working out really helps keep panic attacks at bay. But somehow I’ve lost control of my life again – caretaking for everyone else, and finding no time left for me. It’s quite likely that the lack of control over my life has exacerbated my overall discomfort.

Fifty-seven started ok. The pandemic really didn’t change a thing for me. Errands continued to consume my life. While friends were staying home, ordering meal services and letting their hair grow long I was out doing the shopping and everyday errands for my own camp. By the time May rolled around I was back to business as usual (sans students I should add, and therefore sans any sort of meaningful income), albeit donned in a mask and using sanitizer after every stop. Life only came to a halt for me when I got hit in the eye with a log while attempting to clean up my property in mid-June. That forced my hand. For a couple of weeks the world went on without me as I laid in bed, healing. (At the end of the day I’m lucky. Less than a half an inch toward the center of my eye and I would’ve been blinded. But still, the never-ending discomfort and diminished vision suck. No way around it.)

Then came the adventure with Mr. High School Crush. Ow. That sure went from good to bad really fast. But hindsight and some online study showed him to be a classic misogynist. Knowing that his strange behavior was a real, definable thing was so helpful. The cycle he thrived on was “Idealize, Devalue, Discard”. His MO was to throw a ‘love bomb’ (intense and sudden displays of affection and desire, etc.), get me in close – and then berate me, finally showing himself to be the victor – and me the devalued loser. I still don’t know what caused him to turn on a dime the last time he visited. I asked him, but he never answered. And by not responding he retained the upper hand, so to speak. I had no information to work with, so I couldn’t even counter him, nor could I gain any insight. But frankly, there is no insight to be had; his process requires that he find an offense in order to make himself right, and me wrong. I’m sure he took something I said or did and built it up in his mind to be a major transgression.

In his final text to me he angrily called me ‘self-centered’ and told me that he had revoked my title of ‘Lady’. Sheesh. That’s crazy talk I know, but the even crazier thing is that in my weak emotional states I re-play his words and it brings up the hurt all over again for no good reason. (There does seem to be a little ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ thing going on here.) Once, after it appeared to have ended (on our last parting he had smiled, hugged and kissed me, then driven off, thereafter ceasing any form of communication for many weeks, leaving me to wonder what the hell had happened), I sat at the kitchen island, weeping into my hands. Elihu asked me what was up – and I lamented that I’d thought I’d been falling in love. He very soberly responded “You weren’t falling in love, mom. You were falling in sex.” Thank you, kid. You’re my sage, always. (Um, first sex since the ex. Can you blame a girl?)

And as for the minor rock god? Well, while we had fun (and recorded some music too, although not our best work to be sure), and I’m glad to count him as a new friend, it wasn’t what I might’ve hoped for. We’d already cultivated a playful, flirty vibe, so I’d thought we might’ve enjoyed some good physical chemistry as a result. But he too was mired in his own experience with depression – and his is far, far worse than mine – so the garden wasn’t fertile. We did get physical, but that’s all it was. Whether it was the dulling effect of the meds he was on or his own natural response, he simply did not offer any noticeable emotional connection. I suspect that even if he had been feeling whole and healthy, he and I probably still wouldn’t have had a thing anyhow. But I’ll never know for sure, and that too nags at me when I’m in this low sort of state. Kinda feels like I wasn’t good enough for either of these fellows – not even the one with whom I had music and good humor in common – and that hurts a little bit. And I didn’t even want relationships with them! Just wished for a moment of connection, pleasure and friendship. Seemed so simple, but it turned out to be so elusive. Then again, I was dealing with men who brought their own challenges along with them. I guess the playing fields weren’t exactly level. Shouldn’t bother me all these months later, I know, but it does.

This has past year Elihu has been a senior in high school (whaaaat? Just seeing that in print makes me a bit woozy), so naturally, it’s been a huge year for him. And by association, for me too. Despite his having a 4.3 GPA, being in the 99th percentile with his SATs, having both fluency and literacy in three languages and a list of credentials that is truly hard to fathom, all of the Ivy Leagues passed on him, except for Harvard and Cornell, both which have waitlisted him (we won’t know their decisions for another few weeks). But he was accepted at RPI with generous scholarships, and the appeal of a debt-free degree is strong, so it may even win out over Harvard. The case has been made to us that he can use his undergrad years to kick some academic ass, and then he can do his post-grad studies at a fancy shmancy school. Might be the plan. Still not sure.

Injury, romance, heartbreak, success, failure, stress and hope plus fifty more items somewhere in between. I’d say that’s quite a variety of life experiences. One wonders what can possibly lie ahead. I learned a lot at fifty-seven, let’s hope that I can leverage that new insight and cultivate a really great fifty-eight.

Minor/Major

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This morning I took my son to have his first covid vaccine. As he is still 17 and a minor, I was allowed to accompany him. But for his second vaccine in three weeks, I will be made to wait outside.

There really is no way to prepare a mother’s heart for this transition. Of course I’ve known it was coming and have tried as best I can to make peace with the new reality. Come this Wednesday, Elihu will no longer be a minor. No longer will I be the keeper of his medical records, no longer will I be responsible for his money, no longer will I be the recipient of his grades. How very strange indeed. I have been this person’s sole keeper in every way for the entirety of his life – and in just one moment the whole thing comes to a close. Thankfully he is an incredibly responsible person, and he is well-equipped to take the reigns. But me, I’m just not ready to hand them over.

When Elihu was two and a half years old he had a bad case of the flu, and I took him to the emergency room. There was a one-year-old in the waiting room, and Elihu doted on the tiny boy. The child had had an earache and was frantically crying in distress, to which Elihu responded with such tenderness. He cooed to the toddler, helped distract and soothe him. They spent a good fifteen minutes together, and by the time we were called in, Elihu had coaxed the child into a quiet and peaceful state. It was shortly after we got into the car and began to drive home that Elihu spoke his very first sentence. “When I grow up, I want to have a baby, Mama”. I looked in the rear view mirror, stunned at what I’d just heard. I saw him just sitting there, his pacifier returned to his mouth and looking out the window. My tiny boy, such a huge concept. My son had always been different, even at that age I’d known it. This sentence was just the first of many confirmations. He has always been wise beyond his years.

I first knew there was something distinctly different about my son when he was four months old. Aside from being colicky and hard-pressed to sleep without me next to him, I just knew something was not right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but clues were starting to add up. When I walked him outside in a stroller, he’d close his eyes and slump to the side, but when we’d enter a dark indoor space he’d sit up and open his eyes. He couldn’t open his eyes in the great room of our home, the south wall of which was entirely made of windows, but he came to life in the dark basement playroom. I knew he had an inability to see in bright light, but until he could speak to us, we’d be left to guess about how he experienced his world. One evening I remember nursing and then rocking him, trying unsuccessfully to get him to sleep. And so I held him tightly to me and twisted my torso from side to side, desperate to find the rhythm that would finally take. I remember pulling him away from my chest and looking into his eyes, to find that his pupils were rapidly bouncing up and down. I flushed with adrenaline; had I just done this to him? Had I shaken my baby? A careful inventory of my actions told me that I had not, and yet something had changed. I remember wishing so dearly that I could just know if he was afraid, if he was in discomfort. How, oh how could I make it better?

It was my friendship with the keyboard player in Steppenwolf that became the key to understanding what was ‘wrong’ with Elihu. Years earlier I’d met John Kay, the lead singer and fellow who penned the iconic song “Born to Be Wild”, and I’d known him to have some condition with his eyes that made him colorblind, light-sensitive and also unable to drive (ironic, isn’t it? His song is the anthem for bikers everywhere, and yet John’s never driven a day in his life). As I sat at my desk pondering my son’s situation, I flashed back on this memory and immediately fired off an email to Mike. He responded, confirming my suspicion. And there it was. Without an internet search, without a doctor’s diagnosis. I’d learned that my son had Achromatopsia. Now, finally, I knew.

I’d had some neighbor girls take Elihu to the park, and instantly I felt a deep panic, an intense need to find and hold my baby. Now that I knew, I had to make it better. I ran through the streets until I spied the small clump of kids – Elihu was riding on the shoulders of one of the taller girls, his eyes squinted shut. I grabbed him from her and held him to my chest, shielding his eyes from the daylight. I shall always remember how I felt in that moment; I become a fiercely protective mother, and in that instant I became wholly dedicated to my son’s comfort and ease. In the months that followed I found a low vision doctor in Chicago – who actually specialized in Achromats – and Elihu would soon get his first dark glasses. He would take his first steps outdoors, and our world would become a little less stressful. And even though his father loved him dearly, he did not share my concerns for our son. He wasn’t moved by Elihu’s first steps in daylight, he thought I made too much of Elihu’s light sensitivity, and he would often chastise me for coddling our boy. But I didn’t care. Like I said, my mother’s heart was fierce. Nothing would prevent me from being Elihu’s champion.

There was so much I needed to impart to my son. Ever since he could walk it was my deepest desire to equip him to live as well as possible in this difficult world. My heart longed to give him ease, to give him insight and understanding. There was so much to teach him – where to begin? Folks who know me understand that I’m pretty frank and unedited in my speech. I say what I mean, and I believe for the most part that it’s better to express than to withhold. And that’s the tack I took with my son. If my four-year-old wanted to know how an engine worked, I was going to explain it to him. Seriously. He was going to get the real story, not some dumbed-down explanation meant just for kids. I always spoke to my tiny son as if he was an adult. That’s not to say I didn’t coo to him as a baby, or speak in tender, maternal tones to him – in fact I always spoke to him as gently and lovingly – and respectfully – as possible. I never scolded him as if he were an idiot. I always offered an explanation of actions and consequences, as if he understood. Because if he didn’t yet understand, he would at some point.

How could I teach him about the seasons, the holidays, the traditions of our world? How could I convey the context, the meanings of so many seemingly random cues? And if he saw no color at all, and if indeed the world was hazy and hard to see, how could I teach him to discern things? All of this nagged at me during my son’s childhood. And so I chose to read to him. A lot. (I wish now that I’d kept a list of the dozens upon dozens of books we read. I implore all new parents who might be reading this to keep a log of the tomes you read to your child. In revisiting them you will also revisit shared childhood memories.) Since my son’s vision was not great, and since reading for a good length of time fatigued him, I felt it was best that I take on the job. Every night of his life until he was around ten or eleven I lay next to him and read. Oh the places we went together. The adventures we had. What a huge and full life we had just from our nighttime books alone. This, I think, is in large part why my son turned out to be such a thinker. Having limited vision has also contributed; he has been left to live much of his life inside of his thoughts. While the other kids were watching movies or playing video games, Elihu was identifying birdsongs, inventing melodies of his own or creating lines of poetry.

My mother’s heart had always been heavy with the knowledge that my son would not always be able to join his classmates in so many experiences that most kids consider mundane. Swimming doesn’t work well on account of the bright light that usually accompanies the experience. Moving fast – as in running – is dicey in that Elihu can’t really see things until they’re upon him. When he was smaller the two of us had a system we used while out walking whereby he would minimize the many missteps, falls and scrapes that came of his limited vision. Elihu couldn’t always discern differences in grade, so as we walked together I’d quietly offer “step up” or “flat surface” as we went along. So imagine my surprise when one day at lunchtime my legally blind child whizzed by me on a bike in front of his school! His fifth grade teacher had taught him in just a few periods. I’d always wondered how – or even if – we would tackle this skill. I cried! Oh such gratitude I had for that dear woman! This step was huge. And it opened new doors for my son that I had previously thought would never be options. And can you imagine that my twelfth-grade son has been getting straight As in his phys ed classes? In fact he is even rather aggressive in some sports – but if you’d told me this a few years ago I would not have believed it possible.

Elihu’s father had decided to leave the marriage our son was five. I’d thought that Elihu was too young to grasp the situation, and so when we moved across the country to live in a house next door to his grandparents, I’d thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. He would have everything he needed, lots of nature around, and family too. I always welcomed his father into our home, and have always encouraged their relationship, so he saw his father quite a bit in the early years here at the Hillhouse. (My friends never understood this arrangement; they thought it was wrong to have my ex stay here with us. I thought it was the humane and right thing by way of both dad and son. My comfort could take a back seat for a few days here and there.) I did absolutely everything I could to ensure my son had the best possible childhood. I think I did the best I could with my situation.

However, it became apparent in the first few years post-move, that Elihu had been deeply saddened by the change. I’d thought that if I’d kept up appearances and continued to be of relatively good cheer that it would mitigate any possible negative outcomes. I hadn’t wanted my son to suffer the emotional challenges that other children of divorced parents do. Yet for a while my dear son really was troubled. If I’d expected him to be sensitive to the nuances of life, how was it that I thought he wouldn’t notice this huge life change? A year or so after we moved here I chose to speak to him candidly about the divorce, how it had troubled me too, but how both people needed to be in agreement for marriage to work, and how his father and I were not in agreement. I believe that the truth helped him to understand and make some peace with the situation. It was a really tough experience for both of us, but we got through it by addressing it honestly. Hard a time as it was, it helped us each to grow and become more emotionally resilient.

I needn’t worry about my son now. In fact, I’m tremendously eager for the life that awaits him. He is completely ready to take on absolutely anything. (Recently I apologized – again – for having brought him into this crappy world. I asked him if he might be a bit discouraged about the challenges ahead. “On the contrary,” he answered. “I’m excited. I’m gonna make life my bitch”. !!) Me, I’ve never been particularly good at anything – I don’t enjoy working hard (unless it involves music or writing, then I’m all in), I never did well in school, never had a real day job, never felt like I did things the right or ‘normal’ way. Whatever that may be. However there is one thing I know that I have done very well: I have raised a happy and successful human being. I have given my son love, respect, education, humor and a shit-ton of really good, home-cooked meals. I have spoken to him as a peer. I have held nothing back. There are plenty of books on child-rearing which will tell you I did a lot of things wrong. Most parents would probably frown on my parenting choices. So glad I didn’t listen to all that static.

Such a strange thing that along with my greatest success also comes my greatest challenge: letting it all go. How do I do that? Elihu has been my partner for seventeen long years. Seeing him off into the world is going to be the single hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. But it’s essential for my growth, for his too. It’s a mandatory part of the process. And once I’m past the fear, I know there’s going to be a lot of joy.

Because this next chapter of our lives is going to be huge. Major, in fact.

______________________________________________________________________

An update on the college journey:

With a GPA of 4.3, an extensive lists of personal achievements, fluency in four languages plus some pretty exceptional writing skills, Elihu and I had felt he had a fairly good chance of being accepted at the nation’s top schools, but it proved to be a surprise when he was rejected by all of the places where he applied (save Harvard, more on that shortly).

We both understand that this year is a unique one; with gap year students plus those forced to wait a year due to the pandemic, there are a whole lot more students vying for spots. At the end of the day Elihu has been accepted by RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York) with a generous scholarship, but in that he attended two summer programs there – and it’s a mere 35 minute drive from home – he’d rather go somewhere new, different and a bit further from home. Plus his interest in liberal arts has really ramped up over the past few years, so he’s been hesitant to commit to a technical school.

He has been put on the Harvard waitlist, and he’s done everything in his power to distinguish himself from the crowd. He’s personally written to every administrator who might have a part in the final decision. Truly, he’s been tenacious. But in an unexpected twist, Elihu has been strongly advised by several mentors not to choose Harvard, even if accepted. They make the point that he will more easily rise to the top in a less demanding school, and that he can attend an Ivy for graduate work if it still appeals. Interesting input, and it will remain under consideration.

How surprising to us that at this late date Elihu still does not know where his future lies. To his credit he’s completely calm about the whole thing. Not much he can do. He’s done his very best, and now it’s just time to let the universe do its thing… Feel free to visit my Facebook page for updates. (We have been told that Harvard will respond with their decision by mid May.)

Close to Closing

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This is a first.

I’m writing this post, using thumbs only, on my phone. And my kid has been rejected by his top three choices for college.

Although letdowns of this magnitude are not Elihu’s usual lot, he is being characteristically stoic and undaunted. Rather, I’m the one who’s most upset at the recent news.

This will be the briefest of posts, for I wish only to convey something of an update on our life’s progress here at the Hillhouse.

With my son’s having a GPA of 4.3 and a slew of exceptional accomplishments in many disciplines – plus a mind possessed of top-notch critical thinking skills and fluency in four languages – I cannot understand how it is that Elihu was not accepted by MIT, Yale nor Princeton. Truly, we had thought the challenge ahead would simply be choosing between the acceptances, not coming to terms with the rejections. At the moment Elihu is on the final waitlist at Harvard, but they had over fifty-seven thousand applicants and have fewer than two thousand spots. So it doesn’t look very hopeful. I get it. And so does my son. But still. It’s a challenge to accept that his future reality will be quite different from our imaginings.

This college application experience reminds me a lot of what it feels like to buy a house. When you find that perfect place, you fall in love with a vision of how your new life will be when you live there. And you begin to imagine all the details that will go along with it. The finished basement, the gorgeous backyard. The programs, the campus… Your mind’s eye gives birth to a whole new world which your heart instantly and happily inhabits. You know what your future feels like in this new neighborhood, in this new school. You can just feel it. You know it deep in your bones. This will be your new home. This will be your new school.

There are superstitions that come into play before the deal is closed, before that acceptance letter arrives, that time in which your future hangs in the balance and nothing is certain except for your strong feelings on the matter. Before that house is yours, before that college accepts you, the world is open to all kinds of signs and foreshadowing of the success to come. You stop to pick up pennies in the parking lot that previously you would’ve stepped over, and they become lucky signs from the universe that things are destined to go your way. The year of your father’s graduating class at Yale pops up in the tally on a receipt and you think to yourself that it’s a done deal: some all-knowing force is surely giving you the nod; your kid is in.

And then – just like that – the deal falls through, the college sends a letter of rejection.

The house will not be your home after all. And your dream college will forever more remain just a dream. And then your thinking changes. No amount of lucky pennies or prayerful friends seem to have mattered in the end, did they? Had the prayers and good energy meant nothing? Perhaps all of your hopeful preparations had been for naught anyhow, perhaps the outcome had already long been determined by divine providence… But in the end, none of this really matters. Because no matter the hows and whys, the big question still remains: just what happens now?

Today we find ourselves in a completely new place. In a strange limbo we hadn’t anticipated. It seems that all we can do is continue to live. Collect the eggs, do the homework, enjoy the arrival of spring. We’ve made our offers, so all we can do now is wait. Elihu has had a fairly high-end technical school in his back pocket the whole time, much of it already covered by a generous scholarship which he was awarded this past year. It had always been there as a sort of last-ditch insurance. So it’s ok. It’s just not ideal. And I’m sorry if I come off sounding like we’re entitled, but my child has worked his ass off and I believe he deserves to study at a top institution. These rejections have been a bitter pill for me to swallow, but of course the kid is being level-headed and pragmatic about it all. We both know that covid is to blame for the flood of applicants. We both know that it is an unusual year. But me, I’m a mother who’s always done everything I could to support my child, so I can’t be anything but deeply disappointed.

What’s done is done. Elihu can have no regrets, he’s done everything right, he’s done everything to the best of his ability. There are a couple of schools remaining on the list, and by the end of this month we should know what the options are. Before long we’ll find that new home, we’ll sign on the line and close the deal.

Middling

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In this first week of March, Elihu and I exist in an interesting and unique place in our lives.

Today we are at home, each of us ensconced in our own projects, each working in our own individual spaces, yet each of us knowing and feeling the other to be not far away. We are together, yet alone. Every so often one of us will approach the other to share our most recent achievement, and the other will bear witness. We offer praise, critique, input, advice. We share a moment together before retreating back to our respective workplaces. And I love this way of living. We two are so comfortable together, so attuned to each other’s nuances and ways of thinking. Elihu speaks aloud his newly learned Chinese vocabulary, and I repeat it to the best of my ability. I see that the tree sparrows have returned, and he joins me at the kitchen window to watch them on the feeder while we marvel together at their precisely timed arrival. Elihu references a beginning line from a Tom Lehrer parody, and I finish it. I play an arrangement idea at the piano for a pop song I’m working on, and then Elihu plays me a favorite passage from a Brahms symphony. Sometimes we’ll play a short improvised duet of tuba and piano. And after we’ve enjoyed the other’s company for a short while, the moment concludes most naturally, and we each return to our solitude. But it is a safe sort of solitude, as in the back of our minds (at least in the back of this mother’s mind) we both know that the other is but a room away. And this, at least for me, is the key element to this current state of domestic bliss.

March is a time which has always been both hopeful and trying; it is the time of year when trees begin to drip their sap onto the car windshield, assuring us that the cold will break before long, yet it is also the time of year when the winter can offer up its worst in ice storms and heavy snows, burdening our hearts with a desperate feeling that the green will never reappear. For me, March has always represented the flat and still center of the year. A day in mid March has a strange, etheric, out-of-time sort of feeling to it. Neither winter, nor summer, neither active nor passive. It is the still center of existence. This day in particular has felt just like that. Not only in that is is that time of waiting for Nature to shift, but this year it is also for the fact that Elihu and I have no idea whatsoever where he will be going to college. Having heard from only one school (which although a top-notch institution, is his last choice), we are left to wonder at the trajectory of his life, even at this late date in the academic year. While most of his peers have been accepted and are already shifting their thinking to what will be their new homes and lives, we are left unknowing. We are left with a great expanse ahead with no landmarks. It doesn’t bother Elihu though, as he is deeply embedded in his senior project, and spends most of his waking hours in his workshop. He is engrossed, he is focused. And besides, my son is a person who knows how to fully inhabit the present. So he’s ok. And me? Yeah, I’m ok too I suppose. But I’m also not ok. Like March, I’m somewhere in between.

Not knowing isn’t so bad, actually. In fact, it’s kinda fun. It reminds me of how I used to feel, when as a touring musician I’d wake up on the road in a strange new place and for the first few minutes of consciousness in the morning I would try to recall where I was. New York? Ohio? Georgia? Was I in a closet? In a living room? A motel? I would enjoy those first few moments of not knowing. It was a short suspension of reality. I was awake, and yet it was like being in a dream. A strange in-between. And so it is in a similar place in which I find myself to be these days. Existentially in the middle. But truthfully, it feels good. Today we had no place to be, no deadlines to meet. We had only to do what we pleased. Me, I was upstairs at the piano working out new arrangements and making videos, while Elihu was at his bench, wiring up the the innards of his morphing-wing airplane. We crossed paths a few times, laughed at every meeting (ours is a relationship filled with humor) and enjoyed the alone-but-not-alone way of life in our tiny cottage. It was a kind of heaven for us both.

I mentioned to Elihu this concept of not knowing. The idea that at this very point in time, today, March 7th, 2021, we had absolutely no idea where he would be living for the next four years. No idea where life would take him after the summer. I marveled over how odd it felt – after all we had always been ones for planning and knowing. This was an unusual phenomenon for us both. He stopped on his way back downstairs, pausing for a moment on the landing, and considered the idea more deeply. He agreed. It was rather a strange situation to be in. We both stood for a moment, feeling the silence, feeling the unknowing. Then we parted and returned to our workspaces. Before sitting back down at the piano I looked out of the east-facing picture window in our living room. I could see the thawing surface of Saratoga Lake some ten miles distant, and I saw the Vermont mountains behind in the waning sunlight of late afternoon. The poignancy of the moment was acute; this life of ours had always been so full, so busy, so relentless, so unending…. And yet now the end of it all was finally within sight. The late afternoon light gave me that sad, distant and aching feeling in my chest, adding to the gravity of this impending farewell. How many times had I looked out at this same view and felt content, secure in my heart that life was full and good? Sure, many times I have lamented the load I’ve carried without benefit of a partner, many times I’ve grumbled aloud about domestic chores and the drudgery of it all, but many more have been the times I have reflected on how full a life I’ve had, and how lucky I am to have shared much of this adventure with such a person as Elihu. Many times over the past twelve years I have stood at this same window, looking out at the expanse beyond, feeling so deeply fortunate to be in the midst of a pretty wonderful life.

This is a fascinating place in which to exist. If I’m to be completely honest, I fairly dread being without my dearest companion close at hand, but at the same time I am also eager for it to begin; I have so many projects and interests. It always amazes me when people find themselves bored after retirement. It also amazes me that my mother asks what I’ll do with “all of my time” after the kid is gone. How do I begin to answer that? There is always so much to do! So much to learn. Too much! I’m confident things will be ok, I’m fairly certain that I will find my new groove before long. My son will have some major adjusting to do as well. But he’ll do fine too. We’ll both be ok. Knowing that we have both been actively preparing for these upcoming life destinations, I can rest easy in this space in time. Oh and what a rare thing it is not to know where the future will take us! It is actually a pleasurable sort of suspense.

At this moment we are just where we’ve always planned on being. We are ready. Plain and simple, we are here. At the end, at the beginning, and, at the same time, right in the very middle.