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| Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles |
Around five o'clock this afternoon, it got really quiet and still and I said to Henry that I thought something was going to happen. I texted The Bird Photographer, too. It feels weird. Something is going to happen. We thought earthquake. Everything was quiet. The only thing I heard was the air-conditioner kicking on. No birds, no cars, no horns, no ambulances or helicopters. What would I do if there were an earthquake and I was in the backyard? Henry asked on his way into the house from the backyard where he'd been hitting a lacrosse ball. I was lying on my bed reading. I figured it was a rhetorical question and didn't answer. Henry is feeling anxious about college. My schedule! My future! What will I do? What if I don't do well? I reassured him that no one knows the answers to those questions when they go to college, and if they do, they will probably change their minds once they get there. I told him that it'll all become incredibly clear one day. Ha. I said no such thing. He has no idea that it was only yesterday that I was walking through the Arboretum near midnight with my books on my hip, quickly, back to my dorm where I'd join my Jesus freak room-mate in our Carolina blue room. I'd go down the hallway, take a shower and wrap my hair in a wet towel, go back to the room and sit in front of the window, the fan blowing high, cooling the drops of sweat already beading on my skin.
It rained. Actually, it drizzled. Still! It's August! Well, it was more like a few drops. The sky got dark, there were a few rumbles of thunder and I saw a picture online of a lightning strike in Orange County. So that's what happened. At least for now.
I could see rain in the distance over the water when I walked on the beach this morning. And it drizzled a little on the sand just as I was leaving. Later this afternoon the sky was full of majestic clouds and dark and light played together all afternoon and into the evening. I just took another walk. Silent out there. Like the universe is waiting.
ReplyDeleteAbout college, my son used to say "C's get degrees." It soothed his anxiety about doing well. And he did fine. Only a smattering of C's really. Henry will be fine the moment he sets foot on campus and begins meeting other freshmen. He's going to draw people to him without trying. Until then he will be wound tight with wondering. And you will be emotional too, missing him. He is so worth missing, your cherished boy. But he will conquer college. I have no doubt.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you are experiencing a micro version of our globally strange, unsettled time!
ReplyDeleteAnd here it was oddly cool in the morning, not due to the storm in the gulf, as I had surmised, but instead, the storm formed because of the coolness hitting the heat over the water.
ReplyDeleteWe are all so finely strung right now with the national anxiety and angst. It doesn't take much to set our alarms off.
Henry. Oh, but how fine that boy is going to be! He doesn't know it yet, but he will.
Summer rain in Calif? Weird!
ReplyDeleteWe are having a lot of forest fires here and the air is heavy with an orangish hue. It's creepy. Armageddon like.
ReplyDeleteIt all being incredibly clear one day. Ha! The older I get the more confused I am. Nothing is clear. Nothing.
I know being called a "Socialist" is supposed to be a bad thing but I love the label and wear it proudly. I believe in Socialism and so, I am a Socialist. And I think Jesus was too.
When you remember how grown up you surely must have felt in college, how does your son seem to you now that he is at that age? I still feel that big knot of fear that appeared in my stomach the day my daughter left for uni. Not because she wasn't ready but because I remember how wild I was at her age. But shhhh, don't tell.
ReplyDeleteSmokey air from BC fires...Blue Angels screaming through the sky cuz it's (ug) Seafair. End of days but the sunflowers got so big they fell over.
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