Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Teenagers at large

Waiting for teenagers again. Joe is out with a friend, supposedly for dessert. They have been gone for 4 hours, could they still be eating? And Pat has been in Santa Cruz all day and just sent a text that they are driving home now. That road from Santa Cruz is treacherous, it makes me nervous. Oh, here is Joe now, wondering why I wait up for them. How do you explain without sounding like a crazy person? I wait up because when they don't come home, and I start to imagine the heap they are in on the side of the road, I want to be on the phone to the police to search all the ditches along the freeway, or when the ER calls to say they have my kid I want to already be awake, Joe shakes his head at me, Mom, come on, when does anything like that actually happen? It's not like we smoke crack or something! I could have reminded him that we just sat through the awards night at the high school where we listened to tearful parents give out scholarships in the names of the children they lost. And not just one of them, many of them. I was in tears by the end of it. It makes me realize how fragile life is, and how vulnerable our teens are, and they don't even know it. I could have reminded him of that, but I didn't, I don't want him to be afraid, reality is close enough, one of us wallowing in it is enough. So he sits down at the piano and plays. "I learned all the Bud Powell songs from this one album" "Don't you think this chord is awesome?" I smile and agree, I love to listen to him play, my own private jazz club. I'll wait for Pat, probably be asleep on the couch when he rolls in.

The photo above is another baby sweater started for a coworker of Brian's. I am using the softest cotton I have ever knit with, Blue Sky Organic Cotton. I knit this tonight while watching Sleepless in Seattle with Rose. She was laughing so hard she kept falling off the couch. I am enjoying having more time to hang out and BE with the kids.

2 comments:

_janine ^^ said...

this post is really nice. I think i can understand my mumm more now.. :)

Yarnhog said...

Once they leave home, you won't worry as much because you won't know the details. I worried about our 23 year old a lot more when he was here than I do now that he's on his own. Of course, we still have a 9 year old and a 12 year old at home, so I have many more years of waiting up to look forward to.